


Maintaining A Personal Life

by Gingerhermit



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: BAMF John, Bisexual John, Drama, Eventual Smut, First Time, Jealous Sherlock, Johnlock Roulette, M/M, Mild Peril, Non-virginLock, POV John Watson, POV Sherlock Holmes, Romance, mild character endangerment, not really a case-fic but there is a case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-12
Updated: 2014-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-04 10:48:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1776340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gingerhermit/pseuds/Gingerhermit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and John discover some interesting revelations about each other’s sexuality, which lead them both to question the assumptions they've made about one another for years. In the midst of their mutual discoveries, a dangerous psychopath looms on the side-lines who threatens to destroy their new beginning.  </p><p>----</p><p>  <i>Sherlock’s head snapped to the right, where he fixed his gaze upon the rather unexpected development that was a man standing in their kitchen wearing nothing but his pants and a t-shirt. …</i><br/><i>Unexpected…was this unexpected? Shortly after meeting him, Sherlock had easily deduced that John was not uninterested in men sexually. This was something that John was at least mildly conflicted about and overcompensated for constantly. It was likely that he’d experimented with this interest at least once in the not too distant past, although this was one point on which Sherlock was chronically uncertain. And Sherlock hated being uncertain.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a short little ficlet depicting Jealous!Sherlock. And then it just kept going… and going, and going. Now it has Chapters. And an actual plot. *facepalm*
> 
> The timeline of this is vaguely more than a year after HLV. I do actually plan to write a fic at some point that actually deals with Mary properly rather than conveniently writing her out of the picture, but that day is not today. 
> 
> **Trigger Warnings:** None that I know of. If there is something that you feel needs to be flagged, please let me know and I will do so promptly. 
> 
> **Dedication:** To [Shirley Carlton](http://archiveofourown.org/users/shirleycarlton) ([Prettyrealisticjohnlockfanart](http://prettyrealisticjohnlockfanart.tumblr.com))for not only being one of the best and most dedicated beta readers I’ve had the pleasure of being helped by, but also for going above and beyond the expected. I’m not exaggerating when I say that without your encouragement and insight, this story never would have evolved beyond a half-formed ficlet. Thank you!!
> 
> Additional thanks to Jess (the-science-of-induction) for beta reading the first draft as well! :)

# PART ONE

_Jealousy: A sentiment which is born in love and which is produced by the fear that the loved person prefers someone else._

\- Littré

* * *

 

 

It was two hours after sunrise one rather overcast morning when Sherlock Holmes stomped up the stairs to 221B Baker Street. The dramatic clomp to his steps and the scowl etched on his face were clear indications of his particularly foul mood. He’d just devoted eight fruitless hours to following an insipid moron about on a stake-out that proved mind-numbingly dull without the presence of John Watson. Usually the many varied expressions that John’s face rotated through when he was thoroughly bored was entertainment enough on a slow night. Sherlock had been deprived of this diversion, however, since John was currently embroiled in a project of his own that he called ‘maintaining a personal life’.

The parameters of this project dictated that at least one night a week, John would go out with ‘mates’ to a noisy pub where they would drink beer, watch some sort of sports game, and pretend to care about the mundane details of one another’s lives. Sherlock was supposed to respect the sanctity of these nights and understand that John would not respond to any texts below an urgency level of 7.5. After a great deal of debate on the subject, there was an actual list tacked onto the wall above the desk that detailed what exactly constituted an urgency level of 7.5 and what did not. (Boredom was in fact underlined and highlighted under the NOT column.)

For the most part, Sherlock made his very best effort to respect this arrangement because John was noticeably more relaxed since embarking upon his Personal Life Project. In the year following the Mary debacle, John had not been particularly easy or pleasant to live in close quarters with and in fact there had even been times when John’s unpleasantness had rivalled Sherlock’s own rather impressively. Sherlock had discovered that watching John Watson embroiled in a misery that Sherlock was unable to cleverly alleviate was completely intolerable, so now he found himself willingly sacrificing a night a week or so just to hear John tromping up the steps at 2 am humming a jaunty tune or laughing under his breath.

What made Sherlock freeze in his tracks not two paces off the staircase on this particular night were the sounds of someone fumbling about and opening drawers in the kitchen while the kettle boiled. Whoever was doing so clearly did not know where anything was located, judging from the number of times the same cabinets were opened and shut. Not Mrs Hudson then, and certainly not John, who could be heard humming under the spray of the shower in the bathroom.

John normally only hummed or sang in the shower after particularly vigorous intercourse. The volume and enthusiasm of his musical aspirations appeared to have a direct correlation to his level of satisfaction with his most recent sexual activity.  This morning John’s humming echoed fairly loudly through the flat and into the stairwell.  

A woman, then. It had been several months since Sherlock had been forced to endure this particular hardship regularly, after a steady string of women winning a one night only all-access pass to Dr Watson’s Bed in the months immediately following the official dissolution of John’s ill-fated marriage. At the time, Sherlock had clandestinely thumbed through several books with ridiculous titles on the variation of ‘dealing with divorce’, so he understood that this was considered the ‘rebound process’. He’d rather hoped it would be over with by now.

Granted, none of those books had a chapter on how to handle ending a marriage to a secret international assassin with a stolen identity who used to work for your greatest enemy, and the subsequent stillbirth of the only reason you’d even attempted to forgive her in the first place.

Sherlock steeled himself to face the nightly catch, straightening his shoulders and pasting a bland expression on his face as he opened the door and stalked into the sitting room. He methodically shrugged off his coat, hung it up, and then sat down at the desk to boot up his laptop, determined to ignore John’s leftover until she saw fit to conveniently disappear. It was moderately pathetic when they lingered too long the next morning— John always professed that he intended to call them later, but he almost never did. As much as Sherlock disliked that these women interacted with John at all, he derived a significant amount of satisfaction from knowing that they were on a whole quite disposable and interchangeable.

“Do you have any mugs?” a man’s voice asked from the kitchen. “All I can find are these beaker things, and one is full of finger nails? Bit creepy.”

The mental file in which Sherlock had already begun correlating the paltry data gathered from his pointless surveillance from the previous night dissolved into a cloud of pixelated dust as Sherlock’s brain stuttered and ground to a screeching halt.

“John, is that you?” The man asked again, peering around the corner of the sliding divider between the kitchen and the sitting room.

Sherlock’s head snapped to the right, where he fixed his gaze upon the rather unexpected development that was a _man_ standing in their kitchen wearing nothing but his pants and a t-shirt. It was in fact one of _John’s_ shirts—the overlarge one with a random American band name that his sister sent him for Christmas one year. Although John never wore it, he never could bring himself to dispose of gifts. 

“Oh, sorry—I thought you were….” The man stared at him with a quizzical frown, apparently trying to figure out who Sherlock was and where he’d come from. Only an idiot would think that it had been _John_ who somehow walked through the front door, when John was obviously still in the shower. Sherlock was reduced to blinking back at the stranger rather stupidly for a long moment until his brain finally sputtered back online and he began rapidly processing a great deal of information.

Unexpected…was this unexpected? Shortly after meeting him, Sherlock had easily deduced that John was not uninterested in men sexually. This was something that John was at least mildly conflicted about and overcompensated for constantly. It was likely that he’d experimented with this interest at least once in the not too distant past, although this was one point on which Sherlock was chronically uncertain. And Sherlock _hated_ being uncertain.

Clearly, John was somewhat less conflicted about all of this now given that he was still humming enthusiastically in the bathroom. Sherlock let the silence draw out uncomfortably as he studied the new specimen he’d been presented with.

The man was in his early thirties with a horrible goatee, dark black hair that was tousled with too much product, and he was very tall--  1.88 meters or 6’2 feet, with long, slender limbs and a lean physique that was only sparsely muscled. The t-shirt that would have been overly large on John looked ridiculous on him, riding up to bare his flat stomach every time he shifted his arms. He was evenly tanned in a way that was impossible to achieve in London without the aid of regular trips to the tanning bed, likely at the same time he had a lifelong overabundance of body hair thoroughly waxed.

The man fancied himself a writer, and a pretentious one at that because he had callouses on the fingers of his left hand from the ornate fountain pen that he favoured. He didn’t own a television and most likely claimed to never use a computer. This was, of course, clearly a bid to appear both hip and quirkily apathetic towards technology, and also a blatant lie because everyone used a computer, even Mrs Hudson.

He had also moved Sherlock’s microscope off the kitchen table and set it on the counter to clear a spot. The mould samples Sherlock had been culturing on a saucer for six weeks were tossed in the sink, ruined.

“-honestly didn’t mention anyone else, I just assumed he was available or in some kind of open arrangement…” The Pretentious Writer was rambling, visibly uncomfortable under Sherlock’s silent scrutiny as he subtly shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He was perhaps not a complete idiot, because he’d managed to infer that Sherlock’s silence was not in any way welcoming.

“He’s not,” Sherlock said abruptly.

“Sorry?”

“He’s not in an open arrangement.” This was not a lie, but the man predictably drew the incorrect conclusion and began to backpedal.

“I swear I had no idea he had a boyfriend or I never would have…”

Sherlock slid his chair back smoothly and stood to his feet, disliking immensely that drawing himself to his full height still brought him up two inches short. To make up for it, he let his eyes flash with the most imposing severity he could summon as he stalked over to place himself directly in front of this man. From this proximity, Sherlock observed the beginnings of a light bruise forming just above the man’s collarbone that fit the exact dimensions of John Watson’s mouth.

That last observation made Sherlock’s stomach twist with vague nausea.

“You’re leaving now.” Sherlock’s voice was pitched low as he enunciated each word to menacing effect. This tactic was effective, because despite his taller stature the Pretentious Writer immediately stepped back.  “Preferably after you’ve put on your trousers, although the order really makes no difference to me.”

The man’s expression slowly rippled from confusion to annoyance before he seemed to rally himself enough to step forward and look down at Sherlock with a frown. “Look, I told you I didn’t know he was involved with anyone. I’m not looking for trouble.”

“Turn around,” Sherlock ordered flatly.

“What?” The man was discomfited again, and his eyebrows drew together in confusion.

“Turn around and open the refrigerator.” Sherlock suddenly smiled an overly bright smile that stretched his mouth up at the corners but didn’t reach his eyes. He knew that most people found it disconcerting. “Top shelf.”

The man stared at him for another moment before hesitantly following Sherlock’s instructions. When he opened the fridge, he scrambled back with an almost comedic expression of shock. On the top shelf, a greying human hand stretched up from a bowl of water that had been ice the night before.

“Fucking hell,” Pretentious Writer swore, slamming the door shut hastily and looking distinctly greenish in hue. Sherlock always envied those who were able to achieve that particular palette, since his skin could only attain variations of chalk white. “What the bloody fuck—”

“Off you go.” Sherlock clasped his fingers together under his chin. “Unless you’d like to make yourself available for my next sample. I _am_ in need of a larger than average male foot.”

***

John emerged from the bathroom in his bathrobe, towelling off his damp hair as he walked down the short hall to the kitchen. He felt even more relaxed after a long, hot shower, although the fact that he’d heard Sherlock’s voice earlier did plant a seed of apprehension about what his friend’s reaction might be to his latest guest.

John would be lying if he didn’t admit that he was just a bit curious about that particular response. While he certainly hadn’t planned for the two men to meet, he hadn’t exactly gone out of his way to avoid it, either. Sherlock usually favoured coldly ignoring the women John brought home, at least after he had provoked John’s wrath by making one of them cry.  To say Sherlock had become a little territorial after John’s disastrous marriage would be a massive understatement: John wouldn’t have been surprised if Sherlock ran a background check on every single woman he so much as made eyes at. How he’d react to a _man_ was anyone’s guess.

John hadn’t set out at the beginning of the night to take anyone home, much less a man. But after Bill, Mike, and the handful of other lads he’d arranged to grab a pint with had all made their excuses and left fairly early, John had lingered at the pub only moderately drunk and vaguely unsatisfied. He hadn’t gone through fits to carve out this time for himself away from Sherlock just to turn in before midnight like the middle-aged curmudgeon that he was. When a moderately attractive and quite friendly man had approached John and offered to buy him a drink, he’d thought… well, why not?

It had been years since John had visited that particular end of the spectrum to his sexuality—not since Sholto in Afghanistan—  but lately it had been preying on his mind more often than not. He’d found himself in a bit of a rut when it came to women, and to be honest there were very few, if any, who truly excited him anymore. He’d thought at first it was just a matter of shagging Mary out of his system, like a proper detox program, but in the end this left him just going through the motions and feeling like a cad.

Last night had been something completely different. The sex had felt new and thrilling all over again. John hadn’t realized how much he missed that exhilarating high that lingered the next morning after a sexual encounter, instead of a ball of creeping regret settling in almost immediately as it had been lately. There was a bounce in John’s step this morning that hadn’t been there for some time.

The man himself had very little to do with it. Although he was friendly he still seemed like a bit of a pretentious twat— definitely not someone John could imagine wanting to have many actual conversations with. But he’d been perfectly serviceable for the night, and somehow this didn’t make John feel like as much of a bastard as it did with women. This bloke probably didn’t want to sit around and have long conversations with him either, and that was just fine. It was just as well, because for the life of him, John couldn’t remember his name. Nate? Blake?

“I forgot to tell you, don’t open the refrigerator,” John called out amiably as he walked to the kitchen and stopped, glancing around when he only saw Sherlock sitting at the table peering down into his microscope with a pensive frown.

“Tea?” Sherlock offered without looking up from his precious mould samples that somehow looked a little worse for wear today, and he gestured vaguely to the counter where a hot cup of English Breakfast tea was waiting for him.

John stood where he was, a puzzled expression on his face. “Did you happen to—”

“He left.” Sherlock still did not look up from his microscope, although this wasn’t of itself unusual. Sherlock could lose entire days staring into that contraption. It was a wonder he didn’t need glasses. “Pressing business.”

“Right.” John watched Sherlock for a moment of sceptical silence, sensing there was perhaps more to the story behind why the perfectly nice bloke who offered to make tea while John showered had abruptly vanished from the flat without a word. To be honest, though, John was a little relieved— he was always rubbish at making small talk the morning after. It didn’t help that Sherlock was usually lurking somewhere in earshot pretending not to listen but making derisive snorts at every inane thing John said anyway.

When Sherlock seemed resolved to ignore him, John just shook his head and walked over to retrieve his tea.

***

Sherlock should have been using his time to re-evaluate the details of his current case, now that one suspect had been eliminated. There was, after all, a grieving sister waiting impatiently for the justice that the police seemed unlikely to deliver on the low-priority murder of a common whore.

Instead, Sherlock spent the morning staring at his laptop screen blankly while he was actually deep in contemplation on the matter of John Watson. John didn’t seem the least bit conflicted or embarrassed about his most recent conquest as he went about making breakfast. He smiled eighty percent more than he usually did after a night of sexual recreation, and was still faintly humming under his breath while he fried up an enormous portion of eggs.

For all his protestations about not being homosexual, John acted as though there was nothing at all unusual about what obviously occurred last night. And from the way John was walking, what had occurred was in fact _very_ obvious. If John was willing to be penetrated by a perfect stranger during a casual sexual encounter initiated at a pub, then Sherlock’s suspicions concerning John’s experience were clearly confirmed: this was not John’s first sexual encounter with a man, and quite likely not even his second. It was possible that he started as far back as university, but it most definitely happened at least once in Afghanistan. Sholto was a viable candidate—‘ex commanding officer’, indeed.

There were certain conversations and interactions with John that Sherlock revisited periodically in his mind when searching for clarity, and that very first night at Angelo’s was one of them. Sherlock had really only allowed John a minimal amount of his focus at the time, which had been a mistake. He’d known from the start that John was fascinating, but hadn’t yet realized that he was _important._

Sherlock rarely second-guessed his deductions, but he did occasionally wonder if he’d misread the flicker of interest John had shown in him that night. It had seemed obvious at the time, but in hindsight it was entirely possible that John had only been awkwardly trying to deduce Sherlock’s sexuality with all the delicacy of a ham-fisted toddler. All of the facts from that night on seemed to support the latter interpretation: John doggedly denied any attempt from others to pair them together, and very intentionally pursued only women (and so _many_ women).

But now there was a completely new dataset to analyse. John had brought a man home, had intercourse with him in his own bed, and seemed completely satisfied with the results. More satisfied, in fact, than he had been in a long time. The data also strongly suggested the possibility that John Watson had a _type._ From the correlations between the man this morning and (possibly) Sholto, said type was perhaps moderately close to Sherlock himself in stature and physique, if nothing else: tall, lean, somewhat imposing in demeanour.

The implications shattered Sherlock’s concentration completely.

There was a room in Sherlock’s mind where he’d carefully tucked away his more complicated feelings for John. By now this room was filled to bursting with years of material: the catalogue of every single variation of John’s smile and what precisely called each one forth; the way perusing said catalogue made Sherlock’s chest constrict with a peculiar tightness; an album of every instance where John had ever told Sherlock he was brilliant or amazing, which didn’t happen as often as it used to but never failed to make Sherlock swell with pride; a memory of John leaning up against a wall with his chest still heaving from a spike of adrenaline after chasing down a suspect, which had made Sherlock’s own pulse begin to race for reasons unrelated to the chase; a different memory of John shortly after Mary had left for good—John standing in the empty sitting room of their former house surrounded by boxes, with his hands balled up at his sides in frustration and a desolate frown carved deeply into his features, and the way it made Sherlock want to cover John’s hands with his own and press his mouth against that frown just to see if he could make it curve up at the edges.

The door to this room stayed locked and bolted shut, even though it stubbornly insisted on creaking open anyway every now and then. John Watson was off limits for a great deal of reasons, and just because another one of those reasons may have resolved itself didn’t mean it was any less ill-advised. Sherlock needed John at his side, in whatever capacity would lend itself to keeping him there the longest. Without John every victory was hollow— even solving cases was no longer satisfying when John was removed from the equation.

Clearly even if pursuing John romantically was a viable option, it simply wasn’t worth the risk.


	2. Chapter 2

By now John easily recognized the signs for when to give Sherlock space, so when he saw them that morning he left the other man lost in his own head for the better part of the day. Whether Sherlock was just deep in contemplation about the case, or somehow pissed off about the man in the flat this morning was still unclear. Either way, John felt it was best to let him sort it out on his own.

It was late afternoon by the time Sherlock emerged from his mental retreat and dropped into his armchair opposite John’s.  “So.”

“Yes?” John turned the page of the newspaper he was currently reading and didn’t look up. He had a strong suspicion about what topic they were about to discuss, but resolved to feign ignorance until the last possible moment.  

“A man.” Sherlock was nothing if not compulsively direct.

With a short sigh, John lifted his gaze from the paper to meet the other man’s. Sherlock’s expression was sharply intent, and he appeared to be studying John carefully over steepled fingers.

“Yes.” John drew out the word to exaggerated effect.

“Is this a… thing, now?” Sherlock made an amorphous swooping gesture with one hand, and even after all this time John never did really understand what half of the gestures those slender hands made when Sherlock was speaking were supposed to mean.

“Not that it’s any of your business,” John replied with his voice overly casual, and he paused before adding, “but yes.”

“I see.” Sherlock paused as well, resting his still steepled fingertips on his chin. “So you’re, in fact…”

“Still not gay.” John cleared his throat, and he could see the wheels turning in Sherlock’s brain as a longer silence stretched out between them. John shifted slightly in his chair before feeling compelled to add, “There are plenty of stops on the line between Gay and Straight, it so happens.”

“I’m aware.” One of Sherlock’s eyebrows twitched upward slightly, and John could feel the weight of Sherlock’s entire focus settled squarely upon him. It should have been uncomfortable, but John was actually still a bit flattered every time he managed to find himself on the centre stage of this brilliant man’s attention.

“Good.” John glanced back down to the paper in his lap, picking it up before he reconsidered and set it aside on the nearby table. Now was as good a time as any to finally get to the bottom of something he’d wondered about since they first met. Surely after everything they’d been through together, there was nothing off limits between them now. “So. Are you—”

“Yes.” Sherlock’s reply was immediate, and it lifted John’s eyebrows as his gaze shot back to Sherlock’s face.

“You don’t even know what I was going to ask,” John said, torn between surprise and mild amusement.

“You’ve wanted to ask me properly since the day we met,” Sherlock replied shrewdly, and really John should have known better than to be shocked by this in the slightest. “Frankly I’m surprised it took you this long.”

“Now hang on, I did try—” John’s protest was effectively cut off by one of Sherlock’s elegantly raised eyebrows.

“Asking if I’ve got a boyfriend isn’t the same as asking if I’m homosexual.”

“It’s implied!”

“If you say so.” Sherlock looked fairly smug as he settled back in his chair with one leg crossed over the other, his hands draping over either of the chair’s arms as though he were presiding over a throne.

“It is.” John scowled for a moment before shrugging off his annoyance in favour of selecting for patience. This was a rare opportunity for clarity, and he didn’t want to spoil it.  “But just so we’re clear,” John said, levelling a direct look at Sherlock. “You’re gay. You like men.”

“Yes.” Sherlock answered decisively, leaving no room for misinterpretation. If John had known it would be this easy getting a proper answer out of the man, he’d have asked Sherlock about this ages ago. He probably should have anyway, because this was the sort of thing he ought to know about his own best friend. “Certain ones,” Sherlock clarified after a moment’s pause. “Not all of them, obviously. The whole of mankind is on average fairly disappointing.”

“Okay.” John kept himself from staring at Sherlock only by sheer force of will, fixing his gaze on the empty fireplace instead. For years, he had been working from the assumption that Sherlock was for all intents and purposes mostly asexual. In his entire life, he’d never met a man or woman more blatantly uninterested in sex than Sherlock Holmes. Thinking about Sherlock being sexually attracted to _anyone_ was… disconcerting.

A thousand questions leapt to his mind at once, none of them appropriate. When John looked back at Sherlock, there was a faint smirk turning one corner of Sherlock’s mouth up. Sherlock’s eyes glinted with amusement as though every single one of John’s questions were written plainly on his face in giant font. In his mind, they probably were. John felt his cheeks grow hot with embarrassment.

“Go on,” Sherlock said in a tone that was as close to playfulness as he ever got. Of course he found John’s discomfort entertaining, the twat. However, John supposed it was a win that Sherlock’s demeanour remained relatively warm and open, and not coldly dismissive or condescending as he still reverted to occasionally. It hadn’t gone unnoticed by John that Sherlock was rarely dismissive of him anymore, and considered almost everything John said as though it actually mattered. “Ask me. Do your worst.”

There was something about the phrasing of that last bit that made John uncomfortable for other reasons. God but that voice could make the most innocuous things sound obscene, especially now that they were talking about _this_. “Alright. So.” John cleared his throat, forcing himself to focus on the topic at hand. Unfortunately the topic at hand was sex, which did nothing to ease John’s discomfort whatsoever. “Have you--- I mean, when you, do you…that is…”

Sherlock let John fumble and squirm over finding the words until he finally laughed. When Sherlock laughed, genuinely laughed, it made his face look so young and bright in a way that nothing else ever did. Even though it was almost always at John’s expense, somehow, it was still worth it. And Sherlock was laughing in earnest now, practically giggling as he slumped down in the chair. “God, your face.”

“Oh piss off, you’re such a prick,” John grumbled, unable to help but smile.  Sherlock’s laughter was infectious, and he was never more disarming than when he was cheerfully being an arse. “You know what I mean.”

“Yes, but it’s incredibly funny watching you try to say it.” Sherlock wiped imaginary tears from his eyes, always one for theatrics. “Tell me John, how _do_ you manage to have so much sexual intercourse when you can barely discuss it without blushing like a schoolboy?”

“I do not blush!” John insisted as he scowled at Sherlock, because of course he knew he was blushing very slightly now. It was fairly ridiculous how easily Sherlock could throw him off course and ruin his composure. “I can talk about sex, alright? I’m a bloody doctor.”

“Then ask me your questions, Doctor.” Sherlock spread his hands wide in a dramatic gesture. “I’m an open book.”

“That is the _last_ thing you are.” John rolled his eyes briefly. He pulled himself together as quickly as he could manage, though, because somehow they had fallen into a challenge and he would be damned if he was going to back down now. He schooled his features, willing his mind to slip into that clinical mode that allowed him to discuss things like haemorrhoids and erectile dysfunction with patients without batting an eye. This was, however, rather difficult to do with Sherlock sitting there, watching him expectantly with a glint in his eyes. “Alright,” John finally said, wetting his lips. His question came out a little more clinical than he’d intended: “How many sexual partners have you had?”

“As in intercourse, or—”

“Any of it.” John waved his hand broadly to incorporate the entire spectrum of sexual experience, because why not? The last thing he wanted was to make Sherlock feel inadequate if he hadn’t—

“Three.” Sherlock seemed to be ticking off boxes in his mind before adding, “Two if you only count penetrative intercourse.”

John’s eyebrows lifted skyward.

“That surprises you,” Sherlock remarked, tilting his head slightly. “Is the number higher or lower than you expected?”

“To be honest, up until this moment I wasn’t sure if there would be a number at all.” When Sherlock regarded him with an unreadable expression, John shrugged. Surely he wasn’t surprised by John’s assumption that Sherlock was a virgin, which had only been based on the meagre facts Sherlock had presented. “You’ve never exactly seemed interested in anyone, or haven’t done since I’ve known you.”

“Haven’t I?” Sherlock’s face was still unreadable as John blinked at him without comprehension. Sherlock enunciated his next sentence very precisely, as though he’d rehearsed it several times already in his head: “I suppose it takes someone extraordinary to pique my interest.”

“Like The Woman?” John frowned as he recalled that particular incident, still not entirely sure how Irene Adler fit in to however Sherlock defined his sexuality. John would probably never be ready to admit that just thinking about her still made him simmer with bitterness. She had gotten under Sherlock’s skin in a way John had never seen anyone else accomplish, and then had ruthlessly used that to her advantage without a thought to Sherlock’s feelings.

“An anomaly,” Sherlock said quickly, dismissing this conjecture with an absent wave of his hand that might have just as well been swatting away an annoying gnat. “Any interest on my part was purely intellectual. I wasn’t talking about her.”

“Oh.” John glanced away before his face furrowed with confusion and he turned his head back to ask Sherlock who on earth he meant, then. The only other men Sherlock spent any time with at all were Lestrade and Wiggins, and both of those possibilities were absurd. Sherlock still couldn’t seem to remember Greg’s name properly, even though by now John was pretty sure he kept doing it on purpose just to be a prat.

When his eyes met Sherlock’s face, the question died on John’s lips. His gaze seemed to have slipped down to settle rather intently on John’s mouth. For the briefest moment, Sherlock’s expression flickered to one of undeniable longing and it knocked the breath right out of John’s lungs. Oh.

John’s brow creased and his mouth gaped as he fumbled for something to say, anything, but came up with a total loss. It was absolutely the wrong reaction, but he was too stunned to do anything else.

Sherlock stood abruptly, his face once again an impassive mask.

“Anyway, I thought you might like to go over the findings from last night.” Sherlock began speaking very rapidly in a clipped voice as he walked a few short steps across the room to rummage through the papers on the desk. It was a strangely absent gesture, since John knew that none of those papers had anything to do with last night’s stakeout. “Collins is a complete waste of time, unless one counts a midnight trip to an ‘adult specialty shop’ as incriminating, which makes him pathetic but hardly capable of murdering a prostitute and posing her with a book of pretentious poetry. I doubt he’s read anything between a hardcover in his life.”

“Sherlock—” John’s mouth was dry, and he couldn’t seem to swallow enough times to fix the problem.

“I think our time would be better spent focusing on the landlord. He certainly had ample opportunity in addition to questionable pornography habits, although he’s deeply ignorant as well…”

“Sherlock….”

“John.” Sherlock’s voice clipped sharply as he turned to fix John with an impatient frown. “We’re discussing the case now. Pay attention.”

There was something more to the tone of Sherlock’s voice when he spoke, the smallest hint of imploring rather than demanding that John play along. It was there in his eyes, too, very briefly—just a flash, and it was gone.

“Okay,” John said quietly, his mouth still too dry and his throat a little tight as he nodded. “Sorry. Go on.”

*

There was no way around it— John felt like a complete and utter arse.

Over the course of the next two days, John turned his conversation with Sherlock over and over in his mind in a desperate bid to come to any conclusion but the obvious: Sherlock Holmes was attracted to him.  The very idea would have been laughable just a few days ago, before his perspective had been turned on its head by one incredibly strange conversation.  John now knew for a solid fact that Sherlock not only had sexual impulses like a relatively normal human being, but had actually acted on them before. This tiny and seemingly simple bit of information forced John to revaluate everything he thought he knew about his friend.

If John was honest with himself, he’d been attracted to Sherlock from the moment they met. Even aside from his obvious good looks, there was something about Sherlock, a magnetic energy that drew John to him despite the impossible man’s best efforts to the contrary. For most of the first year and a half that John had known him, Sherlock had been so damn confusing at every turn— pushing John away and pulling him closer in equal measure to an extent that was both dizzying and electric. John couldn’t have stayed away from Sherlock even if he had wanted to.

Then Sherlock went and died, and John had realized that he’d fallen in love with the bastard despite his own better judgement. There really was no worse feeling in the world than that, to finally realize how much someone truly meant when it was too late to ever do anything about it.  Dark thoughts had haunted John relentlessly, taunting him with the idea that if he had just figured it out sooner and had somehow found a way to tell Sherlock in a way that he’d understood, Sherlock might not have killed himself.

John had worked through it, though— barely, and tried to move on like normal, healthy people do. But normal, healthy people didn’t have best friends who faked their own deaths, or end up married to murderous assassins.

John had long since given up the illusion that his life would ever be uncomplicated.

But Sherlock—  even when he’d come back from the dead a little less cutting around the edges, John certainly hadn’t clung to any illusions about the possibilities there. Sherlock had been very clear about his lack of interest from the start. John hadn’t even really been intentionally coming on to Sherlock that very first night of their acquaintance, but the detective still saw right through him and quickly shut him down. Sherlock made it very clear that any interest of that sort was unwelcome, and John respected that. John had been very careful from that point on never to make his friend feel uncomfortable. He became quite good at shelving his feelings for Sherlock Holmes, to the point where he barely thought about it much anymore like a familiar ache that dulled from years of exposure.

So just where the hell did Sherlock get off being bloody attracted to him _now_? Was it even real, or just some odd experiment in driving his best friend around the twist?

No, it was more than that and John knew it. In his gut, he knew it. There was something that had been lurking in the periphery of John’s awareness for some time, something he’d seen glimpses of as far back as his wedding and quickly pushed aside for the sake of his own sanity. Now that he finally let himself look at it full on, he was struck with a revelation so obvious that it left him reeling.

Sherlock had _feelings_ for him, genuine feelings that ran deeper than friendship, and possibly had done for who knows how long. John knew of course that Sherlock cared for him and about him, but he hadn’t really thought anything more was remotely possible. If he was right, John could barely stand to think about the implications of this.

For the better part of a year after his sham of a marriage had gone to shit, John had been parading his string of meaningless rebound flings through the flat like an enormous prick. And all the while, Sherlock had been nothing but unerringly supportive in his own way. He’d let John snap and bristle and rage away at him when John had been so angry all he wanted to do was hurt everything that crossed his path—which almost always happened to be Sherlock. He’d been quiet when John needed him to be, giving him space for days at a time when John couldn’t bear to speak to anyone. He’d instinctively known exactly when John had spent too much time trapped in his own head, and instead needed to be dragged around the arse-end of London after a machete-wielding exotic animal smuggler. He’d asked very odd and stilted open-ended questions (that he’d obviously gotten from a book) about how John was feeling about his situation. He’d spontaneously designated an entire shelf in the refrigerator as an ‘experiment-free zone’ for human food only.  He’d glared daggers at every single one of the dozen women John had thoughtlessly flaunted in his face, but held his famously sharp tongue because he knew it displeased John when he made them cry.

Sherlock was right. John was an _idiot._

But he wasn’t a hopeless idiot. There was still time to make it right.


	3. Chapter 3

There was very little that Sherlock hated more passionately than running into a dead end on a case. The answer was right there, staring him in the face and begging to be seen, but he might as well have been blindfolded. It didn’t help that instead of throwing his full focus on the problem at hand, Sherlock was rather thoroughly distracted. There was a reason he’d avoided this whole ‘sentiment’ business for years. Every time he began to see the faintest glimmer of an answer, his mind raced back to the problem it would much rather be thinking about:

_John._

Every bit of data fell to a useless jumble on the floor at the faintest whisper of that name. Their conversation from that particular afternoon played back in his head on an endless loop, ending always in the horrified look on John’s face.

Sherlock had been so foolish, to allow his carefully cultivated control to slip and in his eagerness reveal his interest to John. An impulsive mistake. Just because John was capable of sexual attraction towards men didn’t mean he was capable of being attracted to _Sherlock_. The idea of driving John away over something so banal as physical attraction was intolerable. Attraction could be controlled. The solution was simple: Sherlock would add another padlock on the door to that room in his mind— John’s room— and keep his feelings tightly reined in the future. John need never feel horrified again. Sherlock had years of practice ignoring his attraction to John Watson. He could ignore it for a lifetime, if only John would let him and not leave. Hopefully it wasn’t too late for that, yet.

The remaining problem was how to proceed without actually discussing the matter with John. Simply ignoring it and willing the issue away clearly would not work. For the past two days, John could barely meet Sherlock’s gaze and when he did, his eyes were full of something shameful like pity. Pity was more hateful than disgust. Pity was excruciating.

“I’m pretty sure that counts as destroying evidence.” John’s voice cut through Sherlock’s reverie, like it always did now whether Sherlock expressly allowed it or not. He could no more block out John’s voice than he could a roaring fire sweeping through the flat.

“What?” Sherlock blinked. He was currently flopped out on the sofa in his blue dressing gown, staring fixedly at the ceiling with…. Oh. He had the bracelet belonging to the victim clasped in his hands and now it was bent back to the point of nearly snapping. It had been given to Siobhan Michaels by her sister on her seventeenth birthday, and she never took it off. That it hadn’t been found on her body had led Sherlock to believe the murderer knew her and understood its significance when taking it as a memento.

Only Sherlock had made a second sweep of her flat yesterday and discovered a receipt tucked between the pages of a magazine as a bookmark. He’d missed it the first time— sloppy. The bracelet had been at a jeweller’s having the sapphires reset. In the end, it hadn’t meant anything at all except an unforgivable dead end.

“It’s not evidence, John,” Sherlock replied tersely as he rolled an arm out and tossed the bracelet on the floor in a fit of pique.  “Unless it’s evidence of my catastrophic failure.” He pinched his eyes shut and sucked his lips between his teeth before hissing, “Failure is so _mundane._ ”

“You haven’t failed yet.” Sherlock could practically hear John rolling his eyes as he stooped to retrieve the bracelet and set it carefully on their desk. “You’ve just….stalled. It happens to everyone.”

“Not to _me_.”

“Right. Of course not.”

When Sherlock opened his eyes once more, John was staring down at him with his mouth pursed in a peculiar frown before quickly looking away. _Pity_ again. Sherlock grated his teeth together, unable to take it for another moment. “Stop that.”

“What?” John glanced back at him with the same frown, and Sherlock heaved a sigh at being forced to explain what should have been obvious.

“Whatever miscommunication may have occurred during our previous conversation,” Sherlock enunciated very clearly with his fingertips steepled over his chin, “I’d like you to delete it.”

“Delete it,” John repeated flatly as he stared down at Sherlock.

“Yes.”

“You realize no one else’s brain actually works that way.”

“A design flaw.” Sherlock punctuated the flippant remark with an impatient wave of his fingers.

“Right.” John looked away again, his furrowed brow asking a question before he even looked back at Sherlock to give voice to it, “Anyway, what do you mean? What miscommunication?”

“Don’t pretend to be stupid, John, it doesn’t suit you at all,” Sherlock snapped impatiently, harbouring the futile wish that real situations operated as they did in his mind so that he could fast-forward this particular conversation to its inevitable conclusion and then promptly delete it. Only that was the tricky bit, because he’d never actually managed to successfully delete anything pertaining to John Watson; on this matter, his mind was a relentless traitor and hoarded even the most insipid interactions like a bird obsessed with a shiny bauble.  

“Well, I’ll pretend that was a compliment.” John’s mouth flickered with a faint smile before almost immediately dropping back into a thoughtful frown. He faltered, taking what was obviously a steadying breath before saying carefully, “Sherlock. I’ve been meaning to—”

“The thing you seem to have inferred,” Sherlock cut him off swiftly, suddenly desperate not to hear the actual words spoken out loud. It was already painfully clear that John didn’t share Sherlock’s attraction—forcing him to hear John _say_ it seemed an unnecessary cruelty. “It was in error.”

“An error.”

“Do stop parroting back everything I say, it’s so tedious.” Sherlock’s irritation spiked as he sat up suddenly, dropping his feet to the floor with a satisfying stomp. He ruffled both hands through his hair in annoyance, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees and fix his eyes pointedly on the ground. “Isn’t it time for you to go—eat something? Preferably somewhere else.”

“So you don’t have feelings for me, then.” John’s voice was quiet and firm, his words cracking against Sherlock’s skull like a cudgel with their bluntness. Sherlock blinked at the floor once—twice.

“Define _feelings_ ,” was honestly the best Sherlock could muster, every cog in his brain having gone curiously and unhelpfully still. When John’s long silence became slightly alarming, Sherlock eventually ventured a look upwards. John’s hands were balled up at his sides tensely while he chewed on his bottom lip— whatever he was working himself up to say was taking quite a lot of effort. Sherlock felt something in his chest lurch sideways, something that may have been the smallest molecule of hope.

“I can’t,” John finally said, and whatever had lurched in Sherlock’s chest dropped down to his stomach. Of course not. “I’d rather show you.”

The conflict from just a moment before melted away from John’s features—his fists unclenched, and he held Sherlock’s gaze steadily with steel in his eyes and a stubborn set to his jaw. Sherlock knew this look well. This was the way John looked when he’d settled on a course of action, and was determined to see it through to the end no matter what the obstacle.

“Right. Okay,” John muttered to himself when Sherlock just stared at him mutely. Brushing aside an awkward moment, John took several decisive steps forward and planted his feet in front of Sherlock. Small, lightly calloused hands settled on either side of Sherlock’s jaw to tilt his face up, and his mind went curiously blank as John leaned down to close the distance between them.

Sherlock felt John’s breath hot against his mouth seconds before first contact, and then the tentative brush of lips against his own. John’s lips were soft and warm, plying Sherlock’s gently to respond even as he sat there frozen. He was having difficulty processing this new information, which directly conflicted with his previous conclusions. John was kissing him. John had in fact initiated the kiss after indicating this was a demonstration of _feelings_ , which meant…

John’s thumb traced the line of Sherlock’s bottom lip as he asked in a hushed voice against Sherlock’s mouth, “Alright?”

It took Sherlock so long to realize a reply was expected that John began to draw back. The reality of John’s mouth receding away from him was intolerable enough that Sherlock lurched into action, chasing said mouth with his own until that warm press returned and he felt John’s lips curve up in a smile.

Sherlock had never thought much of kissing-- despite the _labia oris_ being well documented as an erogenous zone, the idea of mashing one’s mouth to another’s in pursuit of intimacy was the sort of ridiculous practice only homo sapiens could possibly devote pages of mind-numbing poetry to. He’d never found kissing particularly unpleasant, but neither had he ever found himself transported to fields of dopamine-induced bliss carried on the wings of velvet lips.

He’d obviously been experimenting with the wrong subjects, because there was all manner of poetry begging to be written on the topic of John Watson’s lips. John deployed them expertly: alternately dragging his lips across Sherlock’s before suckling on first the top, then bottom lip in turn until they were swollen and quivering. Only then did John’s tongue dart out to sweep across Sherlock’s bottom lip in an invitation that Sherlock accepted with a hitch in his breathing. Sherlock’s mouth was promptly invaded, every surface thoroughly mapped until John’s tongue ultimately tangled with Sherlock’s in a breathless clinch. The entirety of Sherlock’s focus narrowed down to the nerve receptors in his mouth and lips, and the accompanying heady rush was comparable to six nicotine patches.

Sherlock’s skin had broken out in gooseflesh and his chest was heaving when John’s mouth finally disengaged from his. Or rather it attempted to, because Sherlock immediately caught the front of John’s shirt to haul him back in while his other hand curled possessively around the back of John’s neck. John laughed in a soft huff as he tipped forward, nearly falling into Sherlock’s lap but for one hand quickly bracing against the back of the couch.

John’s other hand slipped up into Sherlock’s hair, fingers twining through it as he rewarded Sherlock’s greed with open-mouthed bliss. Their mouths quickly fused, creating the illusion that they were nearly breathing as one entity, pulses thrumming as one, and the entire experience was incredibly intoxicating. John’s tongue swirled and stroked and generally made Sherlock dizzy with want and a shocking surge of need that nearly overpowered him in its intensity. The room where Sherlock had locked away his desire for John was battered open, and its contents were spilling out into the hall.

Sherlock’s breathing had deteriorated raggedly by the time John broke the kiss to murmur against his mouth, “So, how long’s it been?”

Sherlock could only blink, his mind fogged over and stupid, as he regarded John through a haze of sudden arousal so strong it bordered on pain. Words failed him completely; he could barely remember what words were for much less how to form them. The situation would have been acutely embarrassing with anyone other than John, who simply seemed rather thrilled at having struck Sherlock Holmes mute.

“That long, huh?” John smiled broadly, looking so incredibly pleased with himself that Sherlock couldn’t even begin to feel insulted. All Sherlock felt was want—desperate and aching. John shifted their positions slightly, nudging Sherlock against the back of the couch so that he could move forward to straddle his lap properly. John fit so perfectly there, his smaller frame bracketing Sherlock’s as he sat back on Sherlock’s legs and reached down to press the heel of his hand against the erection prominently tenting Sherlock’s pyjama bottoms.

Sherlock breathed out a quiet hiss as his hips bucked up towards John’s hand seemingly of their own accord. He’d never lost control of his transport so completely, to the point where his physical urges seemed to have evolved a mind of their own. It was disconcerting, and John seemed to sense this because he asked carefully with a searching look to Sherlock’s face, “Do you want me to stop?”

Sherlock shook his head, his language centre still short-circuiting but thankfully John wasn’t put off. Instead he tugged down Sherlock’s pyjamas just enough to free his prick, and Sherlock made an embarrassing sound when John’s hand closed around it. It had been nearly a decade since anyone else had touched him this way, and it was a great deal more intense than when he stimulated himself. When Sherlock masturbated it was generally perfunctory, a means to an end, but the feel of John’s palm sliding over his swollen cock was hedonistic bliss.

“Christ, you’re so bloody gorgeous. The things I want to do to you,” John murmured a little hoarsely, his eyes dark with his own want as he watched Sherlock become undone beneath him with just the simplest of touches. John’s hand began to move slowly and Sherlock’s head dropped against the back of the couch, his eyes clamping shut to block out any conflicting stimuli beyond that of touch and sound. John’s mouth followed him, pressing to the flushed skin of Sherlock’s exposed neck as he continued to speak in a low undertone, “I’ve wanted you for ages, Sherlock. You have no idea.” John’s thumb circled the head of Sherlock’s cock, smearing the fluid already leaking out to coat his fingers as he steadily quickened the pace. “I’d written you off, you know. Married to your work and all that bollocks.”

Sherlock opened his eyes to look over at John, wanting to tell him that it was still true but somewhere along the line John and the work became inextricably linked. They were one and the same, now. For so long the work had been the only thing that he allowed to consume his thoughts and resources, the only thing that truly mattered to him at all, but now John was on equal standing. Sherlock’s life was incomplete without either one of them. Sherlock still couldn’t find the words, but when John locked eyes with him, something in John’s face softened a little like he knew anyway.

Meanwhile John’s hand continued to work until he was jacking Sherlock off in earnest, increasing in speed and friction until Sherlock’s breathing rapidly devolved even further to short, ragged pants. Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut again, trying in vain to tamp down on the surge of pleasure that spiked embarrassingly quickly.

John’s mouth wandered up Sherlock’s neck to press against his ear, and he spoke in a low voice that was both soothing and filthy, “Go on, it’s alright. I want you to come for me now, so later you’ll last when you’re pounding me into the bloody mattress.”

It didn’t take much more than that to push Sherlock over the edge, ecstasy overtaking him in a dizzying rush. When Sherlock came, it was with a strangled gasp as his eyes snapped open and his body arched up towards John’s. John murmured sweet, filthy nothings into his ear the entire time, his words blurring to a distracted hum as Sherlock’s awareness dulled and faded away.

When Sherlock returned to himself, he was still trembling and John’s fingers were steadily carding through Sherlock’s damp hair. He opened his eyes a little reluctantly, feeling raw and exposed. John immediately drew him into another open-mouthed kiss, although this time it was slower and laced with a kind of heady affection that overwhelmed Sherlock in an entirely different way. John kissed him until his body stopped shaking, until Sherlock was relaxed and pliant beneath him.

Sherlock reached for John, sliding his hand up underneath John’s jumper to let his fingers brush over bare skin and he felt John shiver as he splayed his hand over the other man’s lower back. Feeling John’s heated skin under his fingertips at last was a luxury, and he felt drunk with it. He wanted to catalogue every mole, every mark, each notch to John’s vertebrae, but that could wait. Instead, Sherlock hauled John’s jumper up and over his head, flinging it aside with John’s cooperation.

“John,” Sherlock uttered the name reverently, his voice a low rumble as he found it again. He wrapped his arm around John’s back and tugged that delightfully compact body in flush against his, but it wasn’t nearly close enough. Sherlock shifted suddenly, lifting John up just enough to toss him on his back so that he sprawled out lengthwise across the sofa.

John huffed in surprise, his features creasing with warm amusement as he chuckled softly. Sherlock quickly moved over him, blanketing John’s body with his own and pressing him down into the cushions beneath them.

“John,” Sherlock sighed as he leaned forward to breathe him in, dragging his mouth up the line of John’s jaw and sucking the soft skin just behind John’s ear into his mouth to taste him.

“That’s me,” John murmured with a smile, his fingers slipping into Sherlock’s hair again as he let Sherlock tilt his chin up to expose more of his neck. “I’m right here.”

Sherlock nipped and sucked the skin of John’s neck until he was satisfied that he’d committed the taste of it to memory; he memorized the flutter of John’s pulse just under his skin when Sherlock’s lips lingered over his jugular.  He slid a hand down between them to make short work of John’s fly, reaching inside to free John’s erection and wrap his hand around it. John made a low sound in the back of this throat, something like a soft hum, as his fingers tightened slightly in Sherlock’s hair.

Sherlock revelled in the feel of John’s prick in his hand, the glorious heat pulsing under his fingers, for all of a minute before it wasn’t enough. He needed more, and closer, and now. It was time to enlist the _labia oris_ in data gathering once more. Sherlock drew back, locking eyes with John as he shifted to move down the other man’s body. He could tell the moment John understood his intent, because John’s breathing quickened significantly and his tongue darted out to wet his lips.

“Alright?” Sherlock asked a little facetiously, because _obviously_. He was rewarded with one of John’s many varied expressions that was difficult to quantify, but quite clearly conveyed the dry sentiment of ‘no shit’, and ‘fuck you’ and ‘actually, you’re amazing’ all at once. Sherlock couldn’t help but flash a smile in return, before ducking his head to drag his lips down John’s stomach. He buried his nose in the soft down trailing towards John’s groin, breathing in the unique scent of him. Sherlock still had his fingers wrapped around John’s erection, and he held it upright as he continued his mouth’s journey to its final destination.

“Oh Christ, Sherlock,” John breathed out in a strangled moan as Sherlock, without preamble, sank his mouth down on John’s cock. This was much better-- perfect, actually, with the salty tang and the scent of him so much stronger here. John was beautifully reactive, his whole body shuddering with the effort of not moving his hips as Sherlock took him in as far as he could. He would most certainly sort out his gag reflex in the future, because it was frustratingly limiting. Mind over matter, surely.

Sherlock used his hands to make up for the lack of depth, fisting around the base of John’s prick as he found the right amount of suction while bobbing his head down and back. It had been too long since he’d done anything like this, but of course Sherlock still remembered the basics and used his instincts to cover the rest. It wasn’t difficult to discern what John liked—he was very vocal in his approval.

“Oh god, yes, just like that,” John groaned as Sherlock circled the head of his cock with his tongue before sinking his mouth back down as far as it would go. John still seemed to be doing his best not to thrust up wantonly into Sherlock’s mouth, and he released his fist in Sherlock’s hair in favour of grabbing onto the back of the sofa with a death-grip. “Jesus, your mouth, you have no idea-- fuck, Sherlock.”

John looked down at him with glassy, hooded eyes for as long as he seemed able, until he finally dropped his head back against the cushions. John’s breathing deteriorated quickly as he muttered hoarse obscenities, and before long he seemed to lose the ability not to rock his hips up to the rhythm of Sherlock’s mouth.

“I’m close, Sherlock, I’m—I can’t—“ John managed, and Sherlock understood but purposefully increased the pressure and frequency of his movements until John cried out. John’s hips thrust up involuntarily, but Sherlock didn’t falter as he felt the first warm gush of John’s release spilling down his tongue. Sherlock latched on and swallowed greedily, because even though the taste was bitter it was still _John_ and he wanted it all.

Sherlock continued to suck on John’s cock with dedication until John collapsed back against the sofa, spent. He then let John’s softening prick slide out of his mouth carefully, and ran his tongue over his lips to savour the lingering taste. At the sound of an uneven sigh, Sherlock glanced up to see John looking down at him with heavy-lidded eyes and a warm smile.

“Come here,” John murmured thickly, and when Sherlock shifted to move back up, John wrapped a hand around the back of his neck to pull him in. As soon as their lips met, John drew Sherlock’s bottom lip into his mouth and caught it between his teeth briefly. “You. Are. Amazing,” John remarked with immense satisfaction, his lips brushing Sherlock’s as he spoke and before Sherlock could reply, he kissed him again. This one was open-mouthed and slow, their tongues meeting in a languid slide.

After the kisses gradually tapered off, Sherlock settled his head on John’s shoulder and closed his eyes. He wasn’t especially tired so much as he felt…content. It blanketed him much like sleep but less suffocating. Several minutes passed in a peaceful lull as Sherlock counted the slowing beats of John’s heart and the evening pace of his breathing.

“Does this mean I get to keep you, then?” John asked quietly, a gentle smile still evident in his voice as his fingers slipped up into Sherlock’s hair again. “Because don’t think for a moment I’m going to let you go after _that._ ”

“Is that what you want?” Sherlock asked after a short pause, opening his eyes to stare at the hollow of John’s throat. “To… ‘keep’ me.”

“Yes,” John said immediately, his other hand reaching over to let his thumb tuck under Sherlock’s chin and lift it up. When John’s eyes met Sherlock’s, they were weighted with what could only be defined as a great deal of affection. This wasn’t exactly surprising, but it was still…a little startling. Perhaps even more startling was the echoing sentiment it called forth from Sherlock, a warm tightness in his chest that was still somewhat foreign to him. “Yes, of course it is.”

“That’s…” Sherlock’s words escaped him for a second time that evening. When he found them again, they were quietly subdued. “That’s acceptable.”

*

Sometime later, after the novelty of being tangled up on the sofa wore off and the numbness of various limbs set in, Sherlock finally sat up to stretch out his tingling legs. He thought John might have drifted off, but now he felt the other man’s eyes following him.

“So,” John said quietly, his voice still a little thick with the drowsy lull that had settled over them both. John shifted to stretch out on the sofa, the movement drawing Sherlock’s gaze to linger there. John still looked fairly debauched and happily so, with his trousers undone and shoved low on his hips and his bare chest beckoning Sherlock to run his eyes over it.

He’d seen John shirtless before, but only in stolen glances out of the corner of his eye while Sherlock pretended to be unfazed and absorbed in his work. Now he had license to openly stare and he took full advantage, committing every patch of skin to memory from the slight curve of John’s stomach that wasn’t quite as defined as it used to be, to the starburst of scar tissue over his left shoulder.

“Yeah, I could definitely get used to that,” John murmured. Sherlock’s eyes reluctantly lifted to John’s face, where he watched one corner of the other man’s mouth quirk up. “You,” John clarified when Sherlock’s brow knitted slightly in confusion, “looking at me like that. Like I’m under your bloody microscope.”

“Not a problem, then?” Sherlock asked with his mouth flickering upwards in an answering smile.

“God, no.” John chuckled, and his hand settled on Sherlock’s arm, fingers rubbing absently over the silky material of his robe.  “I’ll never have to be jealous of your ruddy mould samples again.”

“Were you?”

“Daily.” John’s smile broadened into a grin, dimming the lights in the room by significant wattage. He laughed, just a soft expulsion of air, as he sat up and began tucking himself back in his trousers. “You know,” John said as he zipped up his fly again, “I was thinking—”

Sherlock inhaled dramatically, which prompted John to stab a half-hearted glare at him.

“—that you’re a knob,” John amended, his mouth twisting in a wry smile. “But also about that pesky murder case.”

“What about it?” Sherlock frowned at the reminder of what still nagged at him as a resounding failure. For some reason, it didn’t bother him nearly as much as it had a mere half hour earlier. His mind was still pleasantly hazy from the most satisfying orgasm he’d experienced in a very long time.  

“How you haven’t solved it yet.”

“Obviously.” Sherlock’s tone was a little sharp, although it softened by a fraction as he added, “I’ve been… distracted.”

“Really?” John seemed entirely too pleased with himself at being the source of this distraction as he sat back and crossed his arms. “How’s that?”

“I _am_ trying.” Sherlock felt his frustration with the matter slowly bleed back into him, although it was still considerably muted.

“I know.” John’s amusement sobered slightly, but there was still a glint in his eye as he added, “You should try a little harder, though.” Sherlock barely had time to gather an indignant scowl before John added, “It’s just that once I get you into bed properly, I don’t plan on letting you out for a while. So you might want to get that sorted first. Yeah-- by tonight, definitely.”

“John—” Sherlock began, evenly torn between annoyance and admiration.

“Go on,” John said with a slow grin dragging his mouth up and a playful glimmer in his eyes that Sherlock registered as flirtatious. He’d seen that look levelled at enough women to know. To have John flirting with _him_ now, and making no effort to disguise it, made something in Sherlock’s chest leap. “Impress a bloke.”


	4. Chapter 4

# PART TWO

_Love is by definition an unmerited gift; being loved without meriting it is the very proof of real love. … How much finer it is to hear: I'm crazy about you even though you're neither intelligent nor decent, even though you're a liar, an egotist, a bastard._

-from _Slowness_ by Milan Kundera

* * *

 

 

Any hope of finishing up the murder case in a timely manner was dashed within a few hours by a call from Lestrade. There had been a second murder that closely resembled that of their current case, enough so that even The Yard suspected there was a connection. Instead of a prostitute, this time it was a young runaway turned junkie who had been strangled and then positioned in a back alley with an old book of poetry that she’d clearly never read.

This was why John found himself spending the evening standing under an umbrella in the pouring rain at the mouth of a filthy alley, while Sherlock paced back and forth like a caged tiger and mumbled under his breath. John had given up trying to chase him with the umbrella, and resigned himself to a cab ride home later with a man who would soon resemble more of a drowned cat than a tiger.

“He might be at this a while longer,” John remarked to Lestrade, who was now standing a few paces away huddled underneath a plastic raincoat. The body had already been removed from the scene nearly an hour ago, but Sherlock seemed determined to scour every inch of that alley until he was satisfied.

“Well, he can have at it all night if it suits him,” Lestrade grumbled as he turned away, looking down at his phone as it buzzed with a text alert. “I’ve got to go try to explain this to a family who’s still hoping their little girl’s going to pop in any day now. I could use a lead— hell, anything. What was that book again? German, wasn’t it?”

“French, I think,” John said, peering under his coat where he had the book that was encased in a sealed evidence bag tucked against his chest. Lestrade had slipped it to him earlier on the condition that it would find its way back to the Yard within 24 hours without so much as an extra fingerprint. “Rimbaud?” John was certain that he’d butchered the pronunciation horribly. “Some sort of poetry.”

“So we’ve got an angry poet on a murderous rampage. Perfect.” Lestrade heaved a sigh as he looked over to where Sherlock had crouched down, peering at something under his magnifying lens. “I don’t suppose he’s got a brilliant theory that’ll break the case in the next fifteen minutes or so?”

“Not that he’s sharing—he’s been on Silent Mode for a bit,” John replied with an apologetic shrug. There was no use dragging revelations out of Sherlock until he was good and ready, and then there would be no shutting him up.

“Well that’s convenient.” Lestrade shook his head as he turned to leave. “Text me as soon as you know anything. And I mean anything.”

“Right.”

Although he knew that he wasn’t directly responsible, John couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt at having been a source of distraction that might have kept Sherlock from potentially catching this murderer before he could kill again. Even so, he still couldn’t bring himself to regret a single moment of what had occurred between them earlier. Just the thought of it, and the promise of what he intended to happen later once all of this was sorted, was enough to keep John warm in a torrential downpour. No, he only regretted that it hadn’t happened much sooner.

In all of his wildest dreams, and there had been a few, John had scarcely imagined Sherlock to be capable of something like _that_. It wasn’t Sherlock’s passion or the intensity that surprised him— contrary to the image Sherlock projected to the rest of the world, John knew the man to be the opposite of cold and calculating when it came to matters he deemed important. Sherlock was always vibrating with restless energy, even if it was just in his eyes while the rest of his face seemed etched in stone. It wasn’t difficult to predict that when all of that energy was focused in one place, on one person, the resulting explosion would be bloody incredible.

What had surprised John was how willingly Sherlock gave himself over to it— to John, to the carnal impulses John had always thought disgusted him. He’d always thought Sherlock would hate everything about sex, both the messiness and the vulnerability it brought. Instead Sherlock had gloried in it, had looked up at John with the most beautiful surrender in his eyes that nearly cleaved John’s heart in two. It was both completely wonderful and completely terrifying, all at once.

John was so lost in his thoughts that he nearly missed it when Sherlock strode past him toward the street, leaving John to belatedly catch up.

“Do you have the book?” Sherlock asked as he scouted the street for a cab, as always taking for granted that John was right behind him without so much as sparing a glance. Even with his collar turned up, Sherlock appeared to be drenched to the skin and his hair was plastered to his face as he squinted against the driving rain. He had to be positively freezing, but that brilliant mind was rushing too many places at once to be bothered with something as dull as hypothermia.

“Safe as houses.” John gave his coat a pat where the book was still nestled. “Home, then? Or to Bart’s?”

“Home. I need to examine that book,” Sherlock said as a cab threaded through traffic to pull over at the kerb in front of them.

“You’ve got a theory.” It wasn’t a question, because John knew it was true from the way Sherlock’s expression had sharpened minutely. John couldn’t really explain it, but he could always tell when Sherlock’s focus ceased being scattered and finally coalesced into a single concept or idea. There was a certain look in his eyes, a certain way he held himself—straight and still, like a hound pointing out a scent.

“I’ve narrowed it down to three.” Sherlock ducked inside the cab, leaving John to shake out his umbrella before following him inside.

*

The next morning John allowed himself a moment to marvel at how remarkably little had actually changed despite the recent monumental shift in his relationship with Sherlock. Once they’d gotten home the night before, he’d had to bully Sherlock into changing out of his wet clothes by refusing to surrender the book until Sherlock was warm and dry (“Wouldn’t it be something if Sherlock Holmes’ last case was a case of pneumonia?”*). Sherlock had then spent the rest of the evening wrapped in his own thoughts while he poured over the evidence, ignoring everything else—including John for the most part, aside from randomly asking John to hand him things.

John had given up and left for bed around 1am. When John returned downstairs a few hours after sunrise, Sherlock had taken over the kitchen table with a full spread of laboratory paraphernalia that somehow included two more microscopes than John had been aware that Sherlock even owned, and several racks of test tubes filled with various substances. Chemistry and labs had never been John’s strongest area—he understood the basics, of course, but he’d been happy to leave all that behind in medical school to focus on the more hands on aspects of medicine. John had always preferred dealing with living patients in a bustling hospital or the field to the cold, impersonal equipment tucked away in a sterile lab.

A small smile settled on John’s mouth as he stood in the doorway to the kitchen and watched Sherlock hover from one microscope to the next with the growing agitation of an impending revelation. This was Sherlock in his element, buzzing over his laboratory like an excited bee over a field of clover. The impersonal equipment that put John off spoke to Sherlock in his native tongue – science. Sherlock hardly looked the part of a proper scientist at the moment, however, with a dressing gown wrapped around him and presumably still nothing but pants on underneath since the man had been too impatient to put on proper clothes after stripping out of his soaking wet ones. His hair had gone all fluffy from the rain and was particularly unruly this morning.

Eventually John wandered over, giving the table a wide berth. As he passed Sherlock, he experimentally let his hand brush the back of the busy scientist’s neck. It was the sort of absently affectionate gesture that he wouldn’t have thought twice about in any of his past relationships, but Sherlock was a rule unto himself. John wouldn’t have been surprised if Sherlock flinched away and hissed at him for intruding on his experiments, so he counted it as a win that Sherlock didn’t respond at all.

“Tea or coffee?” John asked as he made his way to the sink. He didn’t bother waiting for a reply as he answered himself, “Coffee, I think. You’ve barely slept all week.”

“Of course,” Sherlock said abruptly, jumping up and striding over to his laptop on the desk where he began typing rapidly.

John shook his head as he dug out the coffee from a cabinet and set about making the strongest brew they had. He couldn’t decide if he was disappointed or thrilled that he still had the same mercurial, difficult Sherlock he’d always had to deal with in the midst of a particularly consuming case. To be perfectly honest, John was mostly relieved. He doubted he could have handled it if Sherlock had suddenly become a doting sop, making eyes at him over dead bodies and spouting poetry instead of cutting observations. The very idea was a bit horrifying.

When John exited the kitchen with a mug of coffee he’d ruined with an excess of sugar just for a certain prickly genius with a sweet tooth, he found said genius still hunched over his laptop. Next to Sherlock on the desk was the book of poetry, written entirely in French with a title that John could barely pronounce. Of course the words flowed off Sherlock’s tongue like honey, because the man was like a bloody pocket translator. John wasn’t sure how many languages Sherlock was actually fluent in— probably all of them.

The book was laid open to a particular passage that appeared to have been underlined in a dark ink that bled into the page slightly where it had been exposed to the rain:

_ Le loup criait sous les feuilles _

_ En crachant les belles plumes _

_ De son repas de volailles: _

_ Comme lui je me consume. _ _*_

 

“That looks promising,” John remarked as he set the mug down at Sherlock’s elbow. He was fairly certain that if anyone could identify a murderer from one single line of ink on paper, it was Sherlock Holmes.

“Sloppy,” Sherlock muttered, sounding almost disappointed as he shut the lid on the laptop abruptly. He glanced down at the coffee and then up at John, blinking as though only just realizing John had entered the room. Sherlock picked the mug up and took a long, thoughtful sip from it before he said, “I need you to go to Bart’s and pick up the preliminary autopsy findings. They’ll have looked over it by now, at least.”

“Can’t you just have it emailed?” John asked with a frown, not especially eager to go running about London before he’d even had breakfast.

“No.”

John waited for him to elaborate, but Sherlock infuriatingly just stood up and walked back to the kitchen with his coffee. John bit back a surge of annoyance. Even though he knew that he’d goaded Sherlock to solve the case quickly and therefore had no right to complain when the detective sunk deeply into his own head to do it, being treated like an occasionally useful prop was never John’s favourite part of the process. John supposed he’d been a bit spoiled lately, since over the past year or so Sherlock had been noticeably more inclusive and had begun letting John into his head more than he ever used to before. Being so abruptly shut out now grated a little.

Still, it was fine. Whatever worked, so long as by the end of this a murderer was behind bars and Sherlock was in bed with John. Just because he was glad that Sherlock’s impossible personality hadn’t significantly changed didn’t mean he wasn’t keen to have the man’s body eager and pliant against his own again… Clearing his throat, John shook his head and returned to the kitchen.

“I don’t suppose this can wait until I’ve had some toast—” John had barely finished his sentence when Sherlock looked over at him with an expression of horror that most people reserved for watching helpless puppies run over in the street. John sighed, resigned to his fate. “Fine.”

*

John had just slid into the back of a taxi when he finally worked out what had been niggling at his brain for the past several minutes while he’d hastily gotten dressed. Molly had emailed Sherlock autopsy reports before when he’d needed them urgently and couldn’t be bothered to examine the body himself. John was sure of it.

“Where to?” the cabby asked, and John paused, thinking. His mind kept hovering on a particular hunch that he hoped was wrong, but experience had taught him well.

“Can you just circle round the block for a bit?” John asked, ignoring the odd look the taxi driver gave him before he shrugged and complied with this strange request. John got another funny look when he then asked the driver to pull over farther down the street and wait for a few minutes.

Sure enough, it wasn’t long before Sherlock emerged from 221B with his coat drawn up to his chin. The rain had eased off to a cold drizzle from a grey sky, and as always Sherlock cut an imposing silhouette as he signalled for a taxi. John narrowed his eyes.

“Follow that car, would you?” John asked, a block of ice settling in his gut. Sherlock was the idiot he always insisted John was if he actually thought by now that John didn’t realize when he was being sent away. To his credit, Sherlock rarely did so anymore because he knew that it enraged John—and with good reason. Just because John had forgiven Sherlock for his suicide stunt years ago didn’t mean that he was going to sit back and make it easy for the other man to manipulate him whenever he pleased. “Stay well back, if you can.”

“What are you, some kind of stalker?” The driver asked him, throwing a sceptical glance over his shoulder.

“Private detective. And I’ll pay double.”

“Righto.”

*

They followed Sherlock’s cab to a modest block of flats on the West End. John stayed in the back of his taxi as he watched Sherlock get out and look directly at John before turning and walking away. John narrowed his eyes, the ice in his stomach melting to simmering fury as he tossed his promised double fare at the driver and slammed the car door with unnecessary force. He stomped off after Sherlock, catching up to him fairly easily at the mouth of an alleyway leading behind the building where Sherlock had stopped and appeared to be waiting for him.

“So.” John’s temper was further ignited by the impassive way Sherlock watched him approach, his expression shuttered and unreadable. “You want to explain what the hell that was about?”

“Not particularly,” Sherlock said with a matter-of-fact calm that irritated John even more. “Your driver was sloppy. I spotted him barely halfway here. I hope you didn’t overpay.”

“Shut up,” John snarled through clenched teeth, his hands balling into fists at his sides as he squared off in front of Sherlock. “I want to know why you still think you can just—ditch me, whenever you feel like it. Or don’t feel like it.”

“Now’s not really the time for—”

“Oh, I’m sorry, is this a bad time?” John’s voice rose significantly and attracted the attention of a few passers-by on the street, but he was too angry to care. He stepped closer to Sherlock in the shadow of the buildings looming over them, lowering his voice but escalating in his fury. “You’re unbelievable. I don’t know why I honestly expected…”

“What?” Sherlock asked quietly when John trailed off. He was studiously not looking at John now, his gaze fixed somewhere over John’s shoulder. “What did you expect?”

“I don’t know,” John replied, his anger suddenly fading into a sickening disappointment as he began to doubt himself. It was entirely possible that what he’d imagined to have changed between them yesterday was in fact entirely one-sided. Just because Sherlock was admittedly attracted to him and clearly open to adding a sexual component to their relationship didn’t necessarily mean that he wanted anything—more. “I guess I thought I’d earned the right to be more than just a bloody inconvenience to you, at least.”

John looked away from Sherlock, clearing his throat in an attempt to regain some dignity because he was certain his foolishness was completely transparent. He wasn’t used to being the needy one, the one who demanded reassurances, and damn Sherlock for reducing him to this.

“John…”

“Human error, right?” John said with a bitter twist to his mouth that echoed the twist in his stomach. “God, I really am an idiot. I actually thought for a moment that you might… you know what, just forget it. Delete it, or whatever it is you do. You’ll have to teach me that trick, sometime.”

Sherlock was silent for so long that John finally squared his shoulders and looked back up at him. Sherlock’s eyes were locked on him now, and his expression had warped into something very serious and borderline-pained. “John—” he began in a soft voice that was slightly gravelled, and he seemed to struggle with finding exactly the right words. “You weren’t wrong. What you thought…regarding my feelings. For you. It may be an error but I don’t care.”

John swallowed, somewhat taken aback by Sherlock’s admission—fumbling though it was. It effectively doused his anger and his doubt, leaving him merely confused. “Then what’s this about?” John asked a little more calmly, his mouth drawn in a quizzical frown. “Tell me.”

Sherlock hesitated but held John’s gaze as he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper.

John took the paper from him and looked down at it with a deepening frown, recognizing it as the bar receipt from earlier that week with the name of the man John had taken home and his phone number scribbled on the back. “I threw this away.”

“I know,” Sherlock replied quietly, his demeanour oddly hesitant and uncertain in a way that John still didn’t quite understand. “I fished it out of the bin in your room while you were sleeping.”

“What—” John’s brow knitted together in confusion, and he decided to sidestep Sherlock’s utter lack of boundaries for the moment. “You can’t possibly still be upset about that.”

“No, John, look at it. Really look.” Sherlock watched him expectantly before giving a softly exasperated sigh. “The ink.”

“It’s…black.”

“It’s the same ink as the one in the book,” Sherlock said, and before John could open his mouth, he added, “Yes, I’m certain, I’ve analysed them both. You can tell just from looking that it’s the same nib, but every ink has a chemical date, and these are identical.”

“So you’re saying….” John paused, his face drawing in with the effort of following Sherlock’s train of thought somewhere he wasn’t certain he wanted to go.

“Yes.” Sherlock stood very still, waiting for John to join him at the only possible conclusion. It took a moment to slowly sink past his disbelief, and once it did, John turned away in a violent spasm to swear under his breath.

“Well that’s just bloody fucking _fantastic_ ,” John snarled bitterly, lashing out to kick the nearest bin rather futilely and earning a sharp pain in his foot for his trouble. His bluntly cut fingernails dug into his palm as he crumpled up the paper in a fit of pique. “I can’t even have a one night stand without fucking a bloody psychopath. Brilliant. Just brilliant.”

 “John—” Sherlock’s uneasiness made sense now, the careful way he regarded John as though worried he might suddenly implode. Which was a distinct possibility.

John paced farther away from Sherlock, looking up to take in their surroundings before stalking back and remarking flatly, “Let me guess, we’re outside his flat right now. Oh, this is fun.”

“I’d hoped to leave you out of this.” Sherlock’s voice was still quiet, but for some reason his caution only needled John more. “If you had just let me—”

“Well it’s too late for that now, isn’t it?” One corner of John’s mouth twisted up in more of a spasm than a proper smile. “I suppose this one is my fault too. It’s what I like, right? Isn’t that what you said once? My abnormal attraction to homicidal lunatics.”

Sherlock shut his eyes briefly, sucking in a short breath as though John’s words had balled into a fist in his stomach. Although John had flung them out with violent intent, it had been a blind swing that he hadn’t actually meant to connect and he immediately regretted it.

“I didn’t mean—”

“I believe you were targeted specifically.” Sherlock’s words tumbled out quickly and flattened John’s in their wake, “He obviously knew I’d been hired to investigate Simone’s murder and mistakenly attempted to gain the upper hand by getting invited into our flat. It was a stroke of luck that you were willing, he can’t have known for certain he’d succeed with only the persistent rumours about our sordid affair to suggest your inclinations. He’d been searching for whatever evidence we had when I arrived, though why he started in the kitchen of all places—”

“Siobhan.”

“What?” Sherlock blinked rapidly at John, his tangent momentarily derailed.

“Her name,” John said more evenly, feeling grounded slightly as he reminded himself what was truly important. There were two dead young women who would never draw another breath, and that made their own petty issues pale in comparison. “The first victim’s name was Siobhan Michaels.”

“What does that matter?” Sherlock asked with an impatient frown, and John signed inwardly. This was not a battle he ever expected to win, because to Sherlock it would never matter whether the victim’s name was Simone, Siobhan, or Queen Elizabeth.

“Never mind.” John shook his head as he looked down to the momentarily forgotten note that had been crumpled in his angry fist. He smoothed it out carefully, trying to avoid smudging the ink any further as he remarked, “So. What about this one, then? I’m guessing his name isn’t really…Nate.”

“Close. Nathaniel Richards.” Sherlock’s mouth turned down as though the name itself were sour on his palette. “Editorial assistant for a frankly forgettable online literary magazine, three failed attempts at publishing a mediocre novel, and most recently venturing into free-lance serial killing. Unsuccessful on all counts.”

“We need proof.” John handed the note back to Sherlock. “This isn’t enough.”

“Obviously.” Sherlock tucked the paper back into his coat and looked towards the building looming over them with his mouth drawn into a thoughtful line. “That’s why I intend to search his flat.”

“Of course you do,” John said with an exasperated sigh, because he could already see where this was headed. Sherlock treated his set of lock picks like a bloody skeleton key.

“I imagine he keeps this particular pen with him at all times, but the ink will be incriminating enough,” Sherlock continued as though John hadn’t spoken, already lost in the sea of information spilling out of his own mouth. “Not to mention I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a memento of some sort linking him to the scene. Photographs if he’s particularly stupid, which is likely. He went through the effort of posing the corpses in a very specific way, which suggests a morbid attachment to that particular tableau. I doubt he’d be able to resist capturing the moment for posterity.”

“So you’re just going to buzz up and see if he’s home, are you?” John asked sceptically.

“Actually, I’d intended to send him a text.” Sherlock plucked a mobile phone out of his coat, and John frowned at it.

“Hang on, is that my phone?” John patted himself down, fishing what he’d thought was his mobile out of his coat pocket. It was Sherlock’s. “Did you switch our bloody phones?”

“You wouldn’t have noticed until you got back, and even then you’d have thought you grabbed the wrong one by mistake.”

“Right.” John snatched his phone back, reminded rather acutely why he’d been pissed off at Sherlock to begin with.  He tossed Sherlock’s phone _at_ him, rather than _to_ him, but Sherlock caught it easily anyway. “Look, Sherlock. We need to get something straight.” John levelled his gaze at Sherlock, squaring his shoulders stubbornly. “I don’t care if you were trying to protect me. You can’t lie to me like that anymore.”

“To be fair, I _did_ need the autopsy results—” Sherlock began, cut off by John jabbing an accusing finger in his direction.

“No you don’t,” John insisted firmly. “Don’t you split bloody hairs with me. You intentionally misled me, and that’s a lie in my book.”

“What book?” Sherlock asked, and John wasn’t sure whether he was genuinely confused or being deliberately obtuse, so he just narrowed his eyes.  

“Sherlock…”

“Fine. If you say so,” Sherlock hedged with a grimace, not looking particularly convinced.

“I do. I bloody well do, and don’t. Alright? Just don’t.” John’s voice dropped lower, gaining an aggressively serious quality as he stepped towards Sherlock once and stopped, “Don’t lie to me. Not again. Not _ever_.”

Sherlock held John’s gaze for a long moment before nodding once. “Alright.”

“Good.” John shifted slightly, a little surprised at winning a concession on the matter relatively easily. “I’ll hold you to that.”

“I won’t lie to you again, John,” Sherlock asserted quietly, his mouth turned down and his gaze intent on John’s face. Sherlock’s eyes were backlit with sudden, intense warmth that John wasn’t quite prepared for. “I promise.”

Sherlock bit his bottom lip, pausing before he closed the distance between them to lean down and press his mouth to John’s. The kiss took John by surprise, and he staggered back slightly, steadied by Sherlock’s grip with both hands on the front of his coat. A faint sound escaped Sherlock as the kiss deepened and he fell into kissing John fiercely. John didn’t even try to keep up, accepting the onslaught as his hands clutched at Sherlock’s forearms for balance.

John believed him. God help him, but he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * _“Wouldn’t it be something if Sherlock Holmes’ last case was a case of pneumonia?”_ Taken from The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. Because I love that line (and that film, of course). 
> 
> *from Arthur Rimbaud’s _A Season in Hell._ Translation:  
>  _Beneath the bush a wolf will howl_  
>  Spitting bright feathers  
> From his feast of fowl:  
> I, like him, devour myself.  
> [[Source](http://www.mag4.net/Rimbaud/poesies/Alchemy.html)]


	5. Chapter 5

John drummed his fingers on the table in a back corner of the little café where he’d arranged by text to meet ‘Nate’. He wasn’t remotely nervous, but rather impatient to be getting on with things. Nathaniel Richards barely registered on John’s scale of dangerous criminals—sure, he was a double murderer, but he was a poncey tosser who strangled malnourished, drug-addled young women with scarves. John was pretty sure he wouldn’t even need the gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans to neutralize this wanker, if it even came to that.

There had, of course, been a minor disagreement between John and Sherlock on whether John actually needed to be here at all: John felt it was the best way to ensure that Sherlock got plenty of time to search the flat and find the evidence he needed, while Sherlock seemed fairly confident that he could find what he was looking for in the five minutes it took the man to hail a taxi. Sherlock also seemed to feel that John was a ‘rubbish actor’ who wouldn’t be able to hide his desire to break Richards’ face the moment he clapped eyes on him. This wasn’t untrue, but it hardly mattered since Sherlock would have his evidence by the time their suspect realized the ruse, even if it was fairly quickly. If John ended up having to ‘break his face’ out of necessity, well, then that was a crying shame.

In the end, John won the dispute easily. He wasn’t above exploiting his newfound ability to silence Sherlock with his mouth, and he fully intended to play dirty to win any arguments in the future for as long as this tactic still worked.

John had strategically placed himself with a clear view of the front door, so he noticed the moment a rather tall man with a scruffy goatee walked through it. He really did look like a bit of a twat—John’s only excuse was that the bar where they initially met had been dimly lit and John had a few pints on-board already when this guy approached him. To be honest, John had been looking for an excuse to pull a bloke for a while and ‘Nate’ had made it very easy. Too easy, really—which made John feel especially stupid in retrospect. With Moriarty and his ilk out of the picture, John had let his guard down too much lately and had wilfully forgotten that being companion to the famous Sherlock Holmes made him a prime target for all kinds of twisted bullshit.

The man sought out John quickly, and John did his best to slap on a mild expression instead of narrowing his eyes as he gave a nod of acknowledgement.  

“I’m glad you called, John,” Richards said as he pulled out a chair and sat down. His long legs pressed up against John’s in the cramped space under the table, and John forced himself not to recoil. “I didn’t think you would.”

“Yeah, well. I’ve been—thinking about you. Quite a lot, actually.” John bared his teeth in what he hoped passed for a smile as he met Richards’ gaze, folding his hands tightly on the table-top in front of him. Even knowing what this man had done, it was still difficult to see past his mild façade. John liked to think that he’d developed a knack over the years of being able to read violence in another man’s eyes and demeanour, but Richards came across like a harmless, soft-spoken hipster who was barely capable of inflicting so much as a paper cut.

“Have you?” Richards smiled as though he was genuinely pleased and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. It was all John could do not to lean backwards in return, itching to keep distance between them. He was sure his posture was stiff and unnatural, but it didn’t matter. Richards was here, and talking to him, and Sherlock would text him as soon as he was finished searching the flat. “I’m flattered. Especially considering that boyfriend of yours. He’s really something.”

“Sherlock?” John asked, slightly thrown by the reference before he remembered that Richards and Sherlock had in fact crossed paths briefly. Sherlock had neglected to fill John in on the particulars of that interaction, but John was fairly certain it hadn’t been especially friendly. He almost denied the label of ‘boyfriend’ out of habit, before realizing with a start that there was a strong possibility that it was now fairly accurate. Instead John cleared his throat, casting about awkwardly for the first thread of conversation that popped into his mind.  “About that. I guess I should apologize if he made you feel—you know. Uncomfortable or anything.”

“Should you?” Richards smiled, almost more to himself, as he sat back in his chair and began idly toying with the salt shaker. “I’ve read your blog, you know. Brilliant stuff.”

“Yeah?” John shifted in his seat, sneaking a glance at his phone where it was tucked away in his jacket pocket. So much for Sherlock finding what he needed before Richards’ cab cleared the block. John wasn’t above feeling smug about that, just a tiny bit.

“My favourite bit was the one with the bombs,” Richards continued, spinning the salt shaker round and round slowly and drawing John’s gaze despite himself. “When Moriarty had the pair of you dancing like puppets all about London.”

“Yeah that was… fun.” John pulled a face slightly as he watched the salt shaker spinning while absently wondering how long he could keep up this annoying charade.

“Bombs are fascinating, you know?” Although Richards’ tone of voice was still conversational, it carried a threatening undercurrent that drew John’s gaze back to his face to find the other man watching him intently. “All that destruction in one neat little package. And you don’t even have to be there to set it off.”

Something in Richards’ expression shifted— even though he was still smiling blandly, the friendly light in his brown eyes extinguished abruptly. It gave the effect of a mask slipping off, the way Richards’ gaze shifted from harmless to calculating in the blink of an eye, and it made the hairs  on the back of John’s neck stand up.

Richards seemed to notice that John was aware of him now, and his smile twisted as he let the salt shaker drop sideways on the table with a clatter. “I never got to meet Moriarty. I think we’d have had a lot in common.”

“Really.” John sat very still as he regarded Richards, readjusting his assessment of the man quickly. He was beginning to realize it was possible that Richards was dangerous in a very different way than John had originally thought. “That’s a shame.”

“Sherlock didn’t really outsmart him, you know. It was just a stroke of luck.” Richards’ eyes briefly lit up with a kind of manic excitement that conflicted with the suddenly flat affect of his voice.

“And you know that how, exactly?”

“I guess you could say I’m a fan.” Richards leaned forwards to plant his elbows on the table, and this time John had no qualms about leaning away. “So tell me, what did Sherlock think of my riddle? The poetry was too much, wasn’t it. I knew it was, but I had to get his attention somehow.”

“Let me get this straight.” John’s voice was quiet, but he could feel the anger and disgust rising in his throat in a way that normally led to shouting. He spared a glance around them, but none of the nearby tables were populated and no one else in the café seemed to be paying them any attention. “You killed two people—two innocent girls, because you’re a _fan_? Of who, Moriarty?”

“They were hardly innocent, John. I mean no one is, really. You of all people should know that by now.” Richards smiled a chillingly cold, empty smile, and he seemed to sense that John was harbouring the impulse to lunge forward and strangle him because he sat back in his chair again. “Hold on, Doctor. You don’t want to spoil the surprise. I’ve got one more. You didn’t think I was finished, did you?”

When John just blinked, torn between his desire to cause the man immediate physical harm and his brain telling him that it would be a mistake, Richards chuckled hollowly as he pulled out his mobile.

“You’re going to like this,” Richards said as he tapped a few times on the screen before flipping it around to face John. On display was what appeared to be a live video feed— with a current time stamp in one corner of the screen— of a dimly lit flat with the somewhat blurry silhouette of a man hunched over, rifling through a desk drawer. The man was wearing a long coat, and even blurry, John knew that silhouette anywhere. “Hey, isn’t that your boyfriend? What could Sherlock Holmes possibly be doing in my flat?”

Apprehension twisted in John’s gut as he replied carefully, “What do you think?”

“I think it’d be a shame for your next blog entry to be about how the Great Sherlock Holmes got himself blown to bits in a tragic gas leak.” Richards looked satisfied, and John was sure he’d turned visibly pale as the words made his entire body go cold. “That’s what they say, isn’t it? When the police don’t want the swooning public to know that it was actually a bomb.”

“Just so we’re clear,” John said quietly, somehow managing to keep his voice level despite the sudden constriction in his throat, “you’re saying you’ve got a bomb in your flat.”

Richards tapped on his phone, closing the current window and bringing up a contact from his address book simply labelled ‘Boom’. “Guess what happens if I dial this number?”

“What do you want?” John’s voice sounded like it was being dragged over gravel, but he didn’t care. He felt dizzy, like he was flailing rather quickly out of his depth. A violent criminal was no match for John, who could meet a physical threat blow for blow— but a clever one was something else. John didn’t exactly have the best track record in outsmarting demented psychopaths. That was Sherlock’s area. John toyed with the idea of pulling a Sherlock and just shooting this sick fuck in the head right now, but he didn’t exactly have a brother practically running the country to smooth over a public assassination in a café.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Richards said, and John blinked, discomfited. “I know you’ve brought your gun. Of course you did. But do you think you can shoot me before I tap this button right here…?”

“You’re bluffing.” John’s mouth was impossibly dry, and he wet his lips in a nervous gesture. The idea that Richards had somehow rigged his flat with explosives was farfetched but not impossible. This man was hardly Moriarty, but if he was some sort of deranged fan then he’d obviously done his homework.

“Might be. Want to find out?” Richards’ finger moved towards the ‘call’ button, and John lunged forward across the table. Richards quickly moved the phone out of his reach, however, and laughed. “Guess not.”

“What. Do. You. Want.” John’s teeth were clenched as he glared at Richards, wanting nothing more than to snap his neck, or at least the hand holding that bloody phone.

“I want you to take a walk with me, John. And as soon as we’re alone, you’re going to hand me your gun.”

***

Sherlock stood in the middle of Nathaniel Richards’ sitting room and stared up at the camera located inside a hollowed out book on the top shelf of a bookcase. He’d found the ink as expected within a few minutes, of course, but other incriminating mementos were proving more difficult. Sherlock was still convinced there were photographs somewhere. The presence of a camera monitoring the flat cemented that conviction—this was a man who liked to watch, who felt powerful when surveying a situation from a distance. Video, then. Richards had likely recorded the murders somehow. Not his phone, that was too obvious and too easy to hack.

Sherlock was in the process of dragging a chair over so that he could reach the camera when his mobile buzzed in his coat. Despite the strong temptation to ignore it, Sherlock pulled it out to glance at the screen. It was a text from Invisible Ida, a homeless woman with a particular knack for blending in unnoticed in nearly any setting. He’d stationed her outside the café where John was meeting Richards (against Sherlock’s better judgement— eventually he was going to have to conquer the impulse to lose arguments on purpose just to see that self-satisfied little smirk play across John’s mouth moments after pressing against Sherlock’s).

Sherlock’s brow furrowed as he read the brief and rather atrociously spelled message twice over. John had left the café and gotten into a taxi with Richards. That wasn’t part of the plan. Sherlock knew instantly that something had gone very wrong.

After quickly sending out a mass alert with the taxi’s plate numbers to the rest of his network, Sherlock texted John.

_What are you doing? SH_

_Are you alright? SH_

Sherlock waited for an entire minute, pacing the length of the room as every second drew out to excruciating effect. After sixty agonizing seconds elapsed, Sherlock texted John random numbers three times in rapid succession. This was a code they’d worked out years ago, due to the unusually high number of times one of them found themselves in a sticky situation without the other present. If John still had his phone on him but was unable to take it out, this would be his cue to text back any random letter or number he could quickly tap out to signal that he was in danger and in need of assistance. A clue to his location would be ideal, but John never was as adept as Sherlock at texting blindly.

Another minute inched by, each second padded with eternity. Finally a text from John appeared: _gtoiutrnw._

Sherlock blinked once before deciphering it beyond random gibberish— _Get Out Now._  Of the flat, obviously. Sherlock glanced up at the camera once more before heading back to the fire escape.

Clearly there was the threat of some sort of booby-trap or accomplice lurking to have spooked John enough to actually leave the relative safety of a public setting with their suspect. John had been slightly overconfident at his ability to neutralize any danger Nathaniel might present, but Sherlock’s reservations were evidently warranted. The man was at least moderately clever to have easily slipped past Sherlock’s awareness once. And now he was manipulating John again, presumably to gain another advantage.

 If Richards was looking to best Sherlock a second time, he was about to be bitterly disappointed. And if John emerged from the encounter with so much as a broken nail, the man would be begging for incarceration to escape from Sherlock’s retribution.

*

Sherlock fidgeted in the back of a taxi as it made its way through London towards the location indicated by his homeless network. The car was navigating the streets far too slowly, and the cab driver had gotten so fed up with Sherlock’s ‘suggestions’ that he’d turned the radio up loudly. Sherlock had ceased getting useful updates several minutes ago, and he tossed his phone across the back seat in a fit of irritation. Focus, he had to focus. Sherlock clamped his eyes shut and forced his mind to run through the litany of facts at his disposal.

John was last seen leaving the taxi with Richards seven point five minutes ago, heading towards an abandoned warehouse. John appeared unharmed at the time, although accounts conflicted on whether or not Richards appeared to be armed with a gun. Richards was at least six inches taller than John. John’s height and stature led many to underestimate him to their own detriment, since John was positively lethal in hand to hand combat. John had begun working out sporadically during the past six months in a fit of middle-aged hysteria, and despite a half-hearted commitment to the regime he’d still managed to increase his overall muscle mass by a small percentage. Where Richards may be cunning, John was experienced, and if John waited for the right opportunity….

Sherlock’s phone buzzed where it had fallen forward onto the floorboards, the prolonged vibration indicating a call rather than a text. Sherlock reached over to snatch it up, glancing at the screen before answering immediately. “John.” 

“Wrong,” a man’s voice that was decidedly not John’s replied, sounding fairly smug. “You’re getting all sorts of things wrong lately. It’s kind of disappointing.”

Sherlock set his jaw, forcing his tone to sound flippant. “Hello ‘Nate’.”

“I think we got off on the wrong foot last time.” Sherlock could hear Nathaniel Richards chuckle at what he clearly thought was a witty allusion to Sherlock’s veiled threat during their previous encounter. Sherlock now regretted that he hadn’t followed through with it. “I’ve just been having a nice chat with your little boyfriend. He’s hot when he’s angry, have you noticed that?”

Sherlock flinched at the mention of John, not bothering to school his expression when the only witness was a disinterested cab driver. Eight minutes had now elapsed from the last sighting of John. Sherlock had to forcibly stop his mind from racing through a list of injuries that could have been inflicted on John in that period of time.

“I’m assuming this interlude has a point.” Sherlock articulated each word sharply, feigning boredom. It was already too late to pretend as though John meant nothing to him, but at the very least he could keep Richards from realizing that he might as well have Sherlock’s own beating heart in his hands. “Are you going to reach it eventually?”

“What if it doesn’t?” Richards’ voice had a hollow ring to it, as though they were standing in a vast space. Sherlock mentally mapped the area, estimating the amount of time it would take to reach their location— ten minutes at least, but it could be as many as twelve at the rate the driver was hitting every stoplight. “What if I just want to kill him while you listen, unable to do a thing to stop it?”

“Then I would say you’re not very original.” Sherlock sighed audibly, wracking his brain for topics of conversation to keep the man talking. John was still alive, then— which meant that the longer he distracted Richards, the better the chances John had of staying that way until Sherlock reached them. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your unmitigated malice, anyway? Did I send your fiancé to prison? Insult your mother?”

“You think _you’re_ original, then? The world’s only ‘consulting detective’. You’re pathetic.” Richards’ voice rose slightly with an agitated disdain, exposing a clear crack in the man’s calm façade. Exploiting it was risky, because provoking him would make him more erratic and therefore more likely to injure John in a fit of pique. However, it would also leave Richards vulnerable to making mistakes.

“Am I? Do elaborate.”

“Moriarty was at it years before you came along, doing the same thing only better. He probably had his network set up before you even thought up the idea in one of your drug induced hallucinations.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow slightly at the mention of Moriarty, a name he hadn’t heard in some time and had hoped to finally be rid of. Richards had no actual connection to Moriarty, or Sherlock would have known about it already. “And I take it you’re an expert on the topic.”

“I’ve done my research,” Richards said, and Sherlock rolled his eyes. A misguided disciple, then. It was tiresome that even after years in the grave, the memory of Moriarty still hovered about like some malevolent spirit persuading weak minded souls to take up his cause. “Your idiotic fan club was good for something. They were a wealth of information even if Anderson thinks you’re some kind of god. They’ve got it the wrong way around, though. You didn’t beat Moriarty. He ended things on his own terms, which meant he was cleverer than you by miles.”

“And I suppose _you_ think you’re cleverer than the both of us put together,” Sherlock said with a disdainful sigh that he made sure to project loudly. “I hate to ruin your fantasy, but strangling incapacitated women and posing their bodies in a pretentious tableau hardly puts you on par with a consulting criminal mastermind.”

“That was just to get your attention.” Richards’ voice dropped into a sudden calm that Sherlock found more alarming than his erratic worship of Moriarty. “Now I’m going to finish what Moriarty never could. I’m going to kill you both, starting with this one here.”

“I think you’ll find Dr Watson to be a slightly more formidable adversary than your last victims.” Sherlock pinched his lips together tensely, glancing impatiently at the front of the cab when it stopped yet again for a traffic light. This was taking far too long.

“You mean because he’s got a gun? I have it aimed at his head right now. It’s a little messier than what I’m used to, but needs must.”

Sherlock’s heart seemed to have lodged somewhere in the vicinity of his throat, and he felt vaguely ill though somehow he managed to keep his voice coolly disinterested, “And I’m supposed to take your word for it? For all I know, John isn’t even there.”

“Hm, that’s fair. Say something, John. Go on. Make it romantic.”

There was a short pause before he heard John’s voice say harshly from what sounded like a moderate distance away, “You can go fuck yourself, Richards. Is that romantic enough for you, you twisted piece of shit?”

The corner of Sherlock’s mouth twitched up involuntarily, but flat-lined again at the metallic click of a hammer being cocked— specifically that of John’s Sig Sauer P226R. The cab was going much too slowly,  still idling at an intersection with a line of tourists crossing. Sherlock dug into his coat, tossing a wad of money at the cab driver before leaping out and ignoring the blaring horns as he ran across the street.

“You sound busy, should I call back at a better time?” Richards’ asked, his voice still emanating from the phone Sherlock had pressed to his ear as he bolted down the pavement, nearly mowing down a string of pedestrians who cursed him in his wake.

“If you harm John Watson in any way, you will regret it for the duration of your hastily shortened lifespan,” Sherlock snarled into the phone, giving up the pretence of calm and instead making his voice as menacing as he could manage while somewhat out of breath.

“You know, matching wits with you has been incredibly disappointing so far,” Richards said with a loud sigh. “I really expected you to come dramatically bursting through the door by now. But you won’t, will you? You don’t even know where we are. I could paint a mural with John’s brains by the time you finally show up. I won’t, by the way. That’s disgusting. Sometimes my imagination gets a little carried away with itself.”

Sherlock was still too many blocks away from his destination, haphazardly rounding a corner when the sound of a gunshot echoed loudly through the phone. Time skidded to a halt with the effect of a train hitting a solid wall, and Sherlock stumbled over his own feet.

Sherlock’s ears rang with static as the sounds of the city around him faded out to white noise.

_“You’re being ridiculous. Starving yourself over the death of a family pet is childish, don’t you think?” For some reason Mycroft was always an adult in Sherlock’s memories, even those that harkened back to their childhood. He had certainly always seemed that way, especially when Sherlock was eight years old and Mycroft had towered over him._

_“It’s only been four days,” Sherlock replied petulantly, his arms drawn over his knees as he stared out the picture window that he was currently huddled against. “Humans can go nearly a month without eating. It’s been documented.”_

_“You’re not Gandhi, Sherlock,” Mycroft chided from where he stood a few paces away, looking down at Sherlock with his hands clasped behind his back. “You’re an undersized child. I give you ten days at most—seven before Mummy takes you to hospital.”_

_“I won’t go to hospital!! I won’t!” Sherlock burst out, his small hands clenching into fists as he buried his face in his knees._

_“She’d have taken you this morning if I hadn’t convinced her that you were sneaking food at night. But you haven’t been, have you?”_

_“Go away!” Sherlock shouted into his legs. “What do you care, anyway? You never loved him. You don’t love anything.”_

_Mycroft crouched down beside Sherlock, studiously not touching him even though Sherlock could feel the ghost of his breath ruffling the top of Sherlock’s unruly hair. Mycroft’s voice was quiet, almost gentle, even as it dripped with distaste, “Love has left you incapacitated over the death of a **dog**. What can we deduce about love?”_

_“It’s horrible,” Sherlock sniffed, fighting back tears._

_“It’s a weakness. One neither of us can afford. Do you want to be weak, Sherlock? Do you want to be **ordinary**?”_

“Sherlock?”

Sherlock was hunched against a brick wall behind him, doubled over to his knees, when the scenery around him abruptly surged back into focus. His mobile was on the ground where he’d presumably dropped it, and from it a tinny voice was calling his name.

“Sherlock? Are you there? Where are you? Sherlock!”

“John?” Sherlock barely recognized his own voice, which had become very quiet and small. Stooping down, his hands unsteadily scrabbled at his phone before snatching it up, and he cleared his throat before speaking again. Even so, his voice was still dangerously unsteady as he asked urgently, “John, are you alright?”

“Fine, I’m fine,” John said, his voice beautifully steady and whole and _alive_.  “I can’t say the same for ‘Nate’, though. He’s got a nasty concussion and I might have—yeah, no I definitely broke his arm.”

“That’s a shame,” Sherlock said with a weak huff of a laugh, still leaning against the wall even as he pushed to his feet.

“It’s really not. He should have known better than to point a gun at a retired soldier when he didn’t even know how to hold it properly. Listen, where are you? Are you out of that bloody flat?”


	6. Chapter 6

“I should have known he was bluffing,” John groused bitterly, and not for the first time that evening after a police search revealed a pointed lack of explosives in Richards’ flat. He shrugged his coat off and hung it up next to Sherlock’s. It was good to finally be home after a particularly long and tortuous day—being held hostage was never high on John’s list of fun ways to spend an afternoon. “Of course he didn’t have a bloody bomb.”

John frowned as he watched Sherlock walk past him without a word and stride off through the kitchen. He peered around the corner just in time to see Sherlock’s bedroom door shut firmly. Sherlock had been eerily quiet ever since arriving at the warehouse shortly before the police showed up, but there hadn’t really been time for much scrutiny in the aftermath. Sherlock’s explanations to Lestrade had been terse and perfunctory; he’d been completely silent for the entire cab ride home and ignored Mrs Hudson entirely when she fussed over the state of them (although that in itself was not alarming). John had rather hoped Sherlock’s mood would improve upon arriving home, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

He was hardly a stranger to Sherlock’s sullen mood swings, and generally just ignored him right back until he was ready to talk again. Now that everything had shifted between them, however, John found himself on uncertain ground and it bothered him slightly that he couldn’t trace the source of this particular sulk. It was possible that Sherlock was angry with John for being stupid enough to get himself held hostage by his own gun at the threat of imaginary bombs, which John didn’t think was entirely fair. If he was honest with himself, John still wouldn’t have done anything differently—maybe Sherlock would have called Richards’ bluff, but even a one percent chance that Sherlock could have been blown to pieces was still too high for John to risk. When it came down to choosing between putting himself in danger or losing Sherlock again—permanently— John knew where he’d throw his lot every single time.

John lingered in the kitchen for a few minutes before he made his way down the hall and tapped on Sherlock’s door with the back of his knuckles. He wasn’t really surprised at the lack of reply, pausing deliberately before cracking the door open and calling out quietly, “Sherlock?”

Sherlock’s bedroom was dark, lit only by the city lights refracting through the window and a sliver of light from the open door. John squinted in the darkness, his eyes adjusting before he could make out Sherlock’s figure on the far side of the bed. Sherlock was curled on his side with his back towards the door, his perfectly tailored shirt rumpled carelessly on his back as he hadn’t bothered to do anything more than kick off his shoes before flopping down on top of the sheets. John knew full well that he wasn’t already asleep—even if the man could doze off in two minutes flat when he was exhausted, Sherlock’s posture was too rigid for sleep.

John stood in the doorway for a long moment of indecision before making up his mind and stepping inside to shut the door quietly behind him. Sherlock didn’t stir even when John sat down at the end of the bed by Sherlock’s feet, and he let a hand settle on Sherlock’s ankle as he asked softly, “Do you want me to bugger off, or stay?”

Sherlock breathed out a noncommittal ‘hmph’, which made John’s frown flicker into a fond smile despite himself. He really shouldn’t find it so endearing when Sherlock behaved like a sulky brat, but John had long since given up the pretence that he could resist the thrall of this man even in his blackest moods.

After considering for another moment, John slipped off his shoes and stretched out on the unoccupied side of the bed. Sherlock remained curled on his side, facing away from him. John left considerable space between them as he rolled on his back and stared up at the ceiling, their only point of contact where John’s hand rested between Sherlock’s hunched shoulders.

*

John hadn’t been aware of drifting off, or for how long, but when he opened his eyes again it was to the distinct feeling of being watched. Upon turning his head, John was wholly unsurprised to find Sherlock propped up on one elbow and scrutinizing him closely.

“What time is it?” John asked muzzily, stifling a yawn as he scrubbed a hand over his face. The bedroom was still dark, but Sherlock’s face was dimly backlit with the city lights from the window.

“I’m in love with you,” Sherlock said abruptly, his voice grimly pained as though he were announcing a terminal illness. John blinked.

“And what time is that, exactly?” John replied with a quirk of his mouth upward, unable to help being struck by the utter ridiculousness of Sherlock’s timing. Of course Sherlock would just blurt something like this out with no warning or context whatsoever. Of course he would. And never mind that it made John feel as though the room had just tipped sideways, because if there was one phrase he thought he would never hear pass Sherlock ‘Love is a Disadvantage’ Holmes’ bowed lips, it was that.

“The symptoms have been present for some time, but I’ve only just diagnosed it properly.”

“Diagnosed—Sherlock, it’s not a _disease,_ ” John said with a soft chuckle that was infused with a great deal of affection for this beautiful, brilliant idiot that he’d somehow managed to find his life tangled up with. John shifted over onto his side to face Sherlock. It was difficult to make out the exact expression on his shadowed face, but Sherlock’s entire demeanour was troubled and John regarded him with a thoughtful frown as realization dawned upon him. “Is this what’s got you so worked up?”

“I’m not _worked up_ ,” Sherlock said with a petulant scowl that John could _hear_ in his voice, and a smile bloomed brightly across John’s face as he looked at Sherlock. “You’re smiling. What are you smiling for?”

“Come here,” John murmured, reaching out to slip his hand behind the back of Sherlock’s neck and draw their mouths together. He wasn’t sure that he would ever get over the thrill of being able to kiss that mouth whenever he wanted, to press those plush lips against his own after years of staring at them wantonly every time Sherlock wet them with his tongue or caught them absently between his teeth. John ran his tongue greedily over Sherlock’s full bottom lip, waiting until his lips parted in invitation before delving deeper.

He could feel the tension begin to bleed out of Sherlock slowly as John kissed him, the rigid line of his shoulders relaxing by increments. John’s fingers steadily kneaded the back of Sherlock’s neck and gradually slipped up into his hairline. Sherlock breathed out a low hum of something a bit like contentment, before drawing away just a fraction.

“You don’t mind, then?” Sherlock asked in quiet voice that was laced with uncertainty, that subtle poison of doubt that always found a way to taint everything if left to linger too long.

“Of course not,” John said with a frown, and Sherlock’s uneven breath was hot against John’s lips where his mouth still hovered.

“If it bothers you, I suppose I could—”

“Sherlock—” John cut him off, peering up at Sherlock incredulously. “You really don’t know?”

John could almost sense rather than see Sherlock blinking rapidly in that way he had when he was particularly flummoxed. Goddammit, he was going to make John say it.

He used to think that this brilliant magician of a man, who could read John’s whole life in the way John carried himself and the marks on his phone, would one day take one look at John’s face and coolly deduce that he was a lovesick idiot. But despite his otherworldly intellectual powers, Sherlock was only human and had proved time and again to have a blind spot a mile wide when it came to John. It was as though the depth of what John felt for him escaped Sherlock’s comprehension completely, despite the several occasions upon which John had already tried to make it clear.

John swallowed hard and shut his eyes briefly, because somehow in the absolute darkness behind his eyelids it was much easier to admit certain things. The sentiment that he always found such difficulty giving voice to finally scraped past his lips in a hoarse whisper, “I love you, you blind git.”

Sherlock’s face was still so close to his own that John felt and heard the other man’s shuddered intake of breath. Instead of freezing up like an overworked computer as he was wont to do when overwhelmed, Sherlock surprised John slightly by surging forward to crush their mouths together.

John responded instantly, both of his hands tangling in Sherlock’s hair and his breath hitching as Sherlock’s tongue pushed into his mouth and he proceeded to kiss John within an inch of his life. What Sherlock lacked in practised technique he made up for with searing intensity, fairly immediately pinning John back against the mattress and covering John’s body with his own.

John breathed out a soft moan that was swallowed by Sherlock’s mouth, their tongues tangled hopelessly together as John felt the weight of Sherlock’s body pressing down on him. John shifted to rub up against Sherlock, moving his hips slowly to provide some welcome friction for his rapidly hardening cock. He was rewarded with feeling a shiver ripple through the other man’s shoulders and an answering firmness in Sherlock’s trousers pressing against John’s thigh.

Sherlock’s hands began an immediate assault upon John’s layers of clothing, tugging his jumper and the shirt beneath it up in an impatient rush that quickly brought them both over John’s head and slung away into the shadows. John fumbled at the buttons on Sherlock’s shirt with equal impatience but considerably less dexterity, inwardly cursing at the sheer number of them until Sherlock mercifully reached down and popped them open easily. John’s hand slid over the curve of Sherlock’s shoulder as he pushed the shirt off, marvelling at this man’s body that was a study of contrasting soft skin and sharp angles.

Trousers and pants were next, slid down and kicked aside much more easily until all the barriers were gone. When Sherlock pressed down against him again, kissing him fervently still, the feel of Sherlock’s heated skin flush against his own was intoxicating. Sherlock’s hands sought his out, interlacing their fingers as he pinned John’s hands to the mattress on either side of John’s head. John was distantly aware of low, needy noises that appeared to be coming from his own throat as he ground his hips up to rub his erection against Sherlock’s body. Sherlock shifted after a moment of this, moving up to align their hips together and when the other man’s now fully erect cock rubbed smoothly against his own, it was nearly enough to short-circuit John’s brain completely.

“Christ Sherlock,” John gasped against Sherlock’s mouth in a voice he barely recognized as his own, hoarse and broken with need. When he’d planned this moment in his head, it had been a slow seduction that would take hours as John worshiped Sherlock’s body from the top of his head down to his toes. He hadn’t really expected them both to be reduced to quivering bundles of need so quickly like horny teenagers, but it probably shouldn’t have been surprising given how long they’d both waited for this. There would be plenty of time for the other later— right now, John needed Sherlock inside him more than he needed air. “Do you have…”

“Bathroom,” Sherlock replied quickly, his voice as uneven as John’s, and if John’s brain were working properly he might have pointed out that this was actually _John’s_ backup supply of condoms stashed away at the bottom of his medical kit that Sherlock wasn’t even supposed to know about.

John felt Sherlock heave a reluctant sigh before rolling off, leaving a rush of cold air in his wake. He was treated to the sight of Sherlock’s retreating backside, which was worth a great deal of appreciation. John barely had time to pull the duvet up around him for warmth before Sherlock returned in record time, tossing a tube of lubricant and a condom wrapper on the bed before flicking on the nearest lamp on the bedside table.

Although the light was dim, John still blinked and squinted against it for a moment. “Wh—”

“I need to see you,” Sherlock said quietly, his voice low and thick with desire as he returned to kneel on the bed beside John and pulled the duvet away to let his eyes roam over John’s body.

It was flattering but still slightly disconcerting—John had never really considered himself to have the sort of body that provided a visual feast for others, and that was fine. John knew that he was short, stocky and scarred. His stomach was little more rounded these days than perfectly flat, and his cock was average just like the rest of him—nothing disappointing, but not terribly impressive either. John was comfortable with his own shortcomings and felt that he more than made up for it by being an attentive lover. So while he hardly considered himself to have low self-esteem, John was still wholly unprepared for the way Sherlock’s gaze hungrily devoured every inch of him like a starving man at a banquet. It was completely unprecedented, but not unwelcome.

In contrast, Sherlock’s body was the sort of masterpiece that inspired paintings and poetry and works of art that would always pale in comparison to the real thing. Or at least it seemed that way to John, who was sure he’d never found anyone in his life more attractive than this man whose skin seemed to glow in the soft lamplight. That pale expanse of perfect skin was interrupted only by a scattering of moles dusted here and there, and John inwardly vowed to eventually map the constellations of every single one with his mouth. Sherlock was long and lean everywhere, and his already fully erect cock was somehow proudly elegant just like the rest of him. John couldn’t resist the impulse to reach out and touch it, running his fingers up the smooth length to the dusky head where he circled his thumb to smear the fluid already beginning to leak out. This drew a ragged breath out of Sherlock, who seemed slightly startled out of an intent reverie.

“Did I mention that you’re bloody gorgeous?” John murmured appreciatively with a smile as he looked up at Sherlock, who stared back at him with a hooded gaze.

“You’re exquisite,” Sherlock replied in a hushed voice, leaning forward to let his hands map John’s skin greedily as though just remembering he was allowed to touch. Sherlock’s large hands ran over John’s chest and stomach, as though committing every inch of him to memory. His movements stuttered slightly when John wrapped his hand around Sherlock’s erection properly and began a slow twisting motion that coaxed a shuddered breath from Sherlock. John leaned up to run his lips over the smooth column of Sherlock’s throat, feeling it bob as the other man swallowed. There was something about Sherlock’s quiet intensity in bed that intrigued John, that made him long to see what it would take to wring a desperate moan from that sinfully beautiful mouth.

“Touch me, Sherlock,” John breathed against flushed skin. Before Sherlock could point out that he was already touching him, John caught Sherlock’s hand and guided it over to the container of lubricant to make his intention clear.

Sherlock obliged willingly, sitting back to squeeze an ample amount of lubricant onto his palm and rubbing his hands together to warm it briefly before wrapping one slickened hand around John’s prick. John groaned his approval, easily falling back against the mattress again, and his hips canted upwards to meet the slow rhythm set by Sherlock’s hand moving over his already aching cock.

John let his legs fall open in invitation, drawing his knees up slightly, and he breathed in sharply as he felt two of those long fingers breach the ring of muscle and push inside him. The touch was tentative at first, until John felt it necessary to demonstrate that there was no need for delicacy and pushed down to seat Sherlock’s fingers to the knuckle.

“Yeah, just like that,” John panted, his whole body strung tight between the pull of Sherlock’s firm hand working over his cock and the push of those fingers thrusting inside him. His eyes had fallen shut, but he opened them now to find Sherlock looking down at him with eyes that were blown black with arousal and an overall expression that was completely wrecked with longing.

“John,” Sherlock exhaled, his low voice sending an additional thrill through John. “I need you—can I…”

“Oh god, yes.” John watched Sherlock with anticipation as he withdrew his touch and hastily tore open the condom wrapper with subtly shaking hands. When Sherlock pulled the condom out a little clumsily and fumbled with it, John’s lust addled mind reminded him that despite appearances Sherlock was not in fact a sex god, and even though he wasn’t a virgin he was still most likely years out of practice with this whole sexual intimacy lark.

“Hey, come here,” John beckoned with his hand outstretched, and when Sherlock leaned in, John threaded his fingers through Sherlock’s hair and drew him down to press their mouths together. John nipped that tempting bottom lip, sucking it between his own before deepening the kiss to work their tongues together slowly. The tension that had crept into Sherlock’s posture seemed to expel itself on a slow, unsteady sigh against John’s mouth, and when he finally dragged himself away from John to sit back again, Sherlock seemed more composed. His hands were steady this time as he rolled on the condom and slicked it over with more lubricant.

Sherlock held John’s gaze intently as he positioned John’s legs again, hands braced on the tops of John’s knees as John spread his legs further and angled his hips up. An anticipatory thrill ran through him moments before John felt Sherlock push his cock inside, and there it was— a low, keening groan finally rumbled from deep in Sherlock’s throat as he slowly seated himself to the hilt. Although John wasn’t a stranger to the sensation, somehow being stretched and filled by Sherlock Holmes’ cock was more satisfying and electric than anything he’d ever felt. This was finally happening, John had made it to the Holy Grail, and it was heady and overwhelming in the best way possible. John resisted the urge to immediately rock his hips back, desperate for more sensation, when Sherlock’s eyes fluttered shut and his chest heaved in unsteady pants.

“You feel bloody amazing,” John sighed hoarsely, keeping his body still to give the other man a moment to collect himself.

“God, John,” was all Sherlock seemed able to manage, and he leaned forward, bowing his head just enough that John hooked a hand around the back of his neck to draw him down again. Sherlock’s forehead was sweaty and hot where it pressed against John’s and he was trembling once more, a subtle tremor that ran through his shoulders to where his hands were braced.

“Alright?” John asked quietly, his voice barely a whisper against Sherlock’s mouth. Sherlock kissed his reply— an open-mouthed, heated tangle of lips and tongue and teeth. A low noise escaped each of them as Sherlock finally began to move, rocking forward before pulling back and thrusting into John again.

“Oh, yes, that’s—,” John groaned, repositioning his legs to wrap them around Sherlock’s waist. Gradually they fell into a rhythm that worked, Sherlock’s hands bracing on John’s shoulders and John’s gripping Sherlock’s forearms as their bodies moved together. It wasn’t quite enough, though, and John shifted, angling his hips just so until— “God, yes, fuck, right there—”

Sherlock took the hint, adjusting his thrusts a little more shallowly to hit John’s prostate and make him gasp with starbursts of pleasure that only escalated when John reached a hand between them to fist his own leaking cock, pumping in time with Sherlock’s thrusts as they increased in speed and power. For several long minutes, the only sounds in the bedroom were those of the headboard rhythmically thrumming against the wall punctuated by John’s breathless curses, Sherlock’s ragged pants, and the slapping of flesh on flesh.

“Fucking Christ, Sherlock, I’m close, I’m—” John panted out, moments before his body arched up off the bed and his release spilled out over his hand as his orgasm jolted through him with blinding intensity. He was vaguely aware of Sherlock pitching forward, burying his face in John’s neck with a muffled shout as his hips snapped faster and more frantically before shuddering to a breathless, quivering halt.

John shut his eyes, slipping into a blissful state of satisfied exhaustion as Sherlock collapsed on top of him, face still buried in John’s neck and his chest still heaving with exertion. They stayed that way for some time, until the weight of another body slumped heavily atop John like a hot, sweaty blanket began to take its toll.

John shifted slightly, and then nudged Sherlock a little more insistently until the other man got the hint and moved off of John to allow him to breathe properly. Sherlock pulled out and rolled onto his back, stretching out beside John with their shoulders touching.

“Well. That was—” John laughed breathlessly when words escaped him completely, and Sherlock gave a low hum of agreement. The bedroom fell quiet and John shut his eyes, feeling drowsy and utterly sated. As it turned out, being fucked by Sherlock Holmes was every bit the borderline religious experience one might imagine. Any worries that something John had wanted for so long wouldn’t live up to the inflated expectations built up by years of imagining were well put to rest. The reality was even better.

John was dimly aware of Sherlock getting up and cleaning off in the bathroom before returning to bed. John probably should have done the same, but call of sleep was lulling him too strongly. Sherlock’s bed was plush and comfortable, a wasted luxury given how rarely he actually used it. John had designs to change that— if given his way, this bed would be seeing a great deal more action in the very near future.

“What you said before,” Sherlock’s voice cut through John’s drowsiness, and John reluctantly pried his eyes back open. The lamp had been turned off, and Sherlock was resting on his back staring up at the ceiling. “You meant it.”

It took John a moment to recall what Sherlock was talking about, and then he frowned as he propped up on one elbow to look at Sherlock properly. “Yeah, I did,” John said quietly. “Course I did.”

Sherlock swallowed. “Good. That’s…good.”

“Yeah, it is.” John smiled slightly, shifting over to settle in Sherlock’s space although he wasn’t sure what the other man’s policy was on ‘cuddling’. This question was answered fairly immediately when Sherlock’s arms wrapped around John and drew him tightly against his chest.

“What happened today, when Richards…” Sherlock began quietly after a long pause. “It will happen again. Those closest to me will always be a target, and you especially—”

“Is that supposed to put me off?” John asked with a small smile, shifting his head to find a comfortable spot to rest on the bony expanse of Sherlock’s shoulder. Finding none, John simply tucked his face into the warm hollow of Sherlock’s throat and shut his eyes.

“I suppose not,” Sherlock allowed with what John could tell was a slight smile of his own as his cheek settled against the top of John’s head. His hold on John relaxed slightly, one hand settling on John’s back to keep him drawn in closely. “You do make a spectacularly difficult damsel in distress.”

“Should have broken both his arms.” John’s words were blurred in a drowsy mumble against Sherlock’s skin, and he could hear a soft chuckle rumbling low in Sherlock’s throat. After a moment, John’s mouth twitched into a slight smirk as he remarked, “Guess we should really be thanking him, though.”

“Thank him?” Sherlock’s voice was laden with distaste at the idea. “Why?”

“Well, here we are,” John remarked, letting one hand splay across Sherlock’s bare chest. “Thanks in part to that Moriarty-loving wanker.”

Sherlock ‘hmphed’ at this, his own hand tracing thoughtfully up and down John’s back. “We’d have gotten here eventually… Give or take a decade, perhaps.”

John huffed a quiet laugh into Sherlock’s neck, although the idea of more wasted years spent awkwardly dancing around their mutual attraction and tucking their feelings away behind the veil of platonic friendship was frankly repellent. “That’s it, first thing in the morning we’re sending him a fruit basket.”

Sherlock’s answering laugh was rich and deep, and he remarked with his mouth pressed to the top of John’s head, “I suppose we could include a poisoned apple.”

“I’d think knowing he helped us along would be poison enough,” John said with a smile, brushing his lips against Sherlock’s skin just because he could. “But that’s not a bad idea.”

It wasn’t long before John’s eyes fell shut again, and he slowly felt his awareness drifting away, lulled by the steady breathing of the man whose body he was currently tangled up with. The last conscious thought that crossed his mind was that it was worth dealing with a thousand Richards just to find himself here at the end of the day.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading. Kudos/comments are my sunshine. :) You can also find me flailing about Johnlock on [Tumblr](http://gingerhermit.tumblr.com/).


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